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^L /09^, t/o

Darvar^ Colleoe Xibrari^

BOUGHT WITH MONEY
RECEIVED FROM THE
SALE OF DUPLICATES

THE POTIPHAR PAPERS.

o

THE

POTIPHAR PAPERS.

BY

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

NEW YORK:

HABPEB A BROTHEBS, PUBLISHERS,

FBAKKLIN SQUABB.

1866.

HARVARD COLLEGE UB8A«[

BOUGHT FROM

DUPLICATE MOREy

AUG t5 1840

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by

GEOEGE WILLIAM CURTIS,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New York,

M Imaginatioii fondly stoops to trace
The parlor splendors of that festive place."

Goldsmith's Deserted Village.

« Manners are what vex <ft oothe, corrupt or pjurtfyy exalt or debosei
barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible opera-
tion, like that of the air we breathe in."

Burke's First Letter on a Regicide Peace.

** And I do seriously approve of that saying of yours, * that you would
rather be a civil, well-governed, well-grounded, temperate, poor angler
than a drunken lord.' But 1 hope there is none such."

Walton's Angler,

** < Hon petit faquin de philosophe,' dit le Chevalier de Grammont, ' tu
feus ici le Caton de Normandie.' "
« < £s^c6 que je mens V poursuivit Saint-Evremond."

Mimoires de Grammont.

CONTENTS.

PAQI

I. "OurBestSocibtt," 1

n. Our New Livert, and Other TmNas — A Letter

FROM Mrs. Potifhar to Miss Caroline Pettitoes, 39

m. A Meditation by Paul Potiphar, Esq., • , .81

rr. From the Summer Diary op Minerva Tattle, • 115

V. The Potiphars in Paris, 155

VI. KuRZ Pacha to the King op Sennaar, upon reobiv-

INO ms Letters op Ebcall {now first translated), 203

Vn. The Bet. Henry DoYB to Mrs. Potiphar {private), 211

PREFATORY LETTER
to

REV. CREAM CHEESE.

Rev. and Deab Sie:

It is sorely uimecessary to call the attention of so astute
an observer, and so austere a critic, as yourself, to the fact
that the title of the leading essay in this little volume (of
which, permit me to say, you are so essential an ornament)
is marked as a quotation ; and a quotation, as you will very
well remember, from the lips of our friend, Mrs. Fotiphar,
herself.

Therefore, Rev. Sir, your judgment, which, you must
allow me to say, is no less impartial than your experience
is profound, will suggest to you that the subject of that
essay (of the points of which the succeeding sketches are
but elaborations) is the aspect of what is currentiy termed
" our best society'* — ^whether with reason or not, is beside
the purpose.

,Your pastoral charity, I am convinced, will persuade you
to direct the attention of your parishioners to this fact, and
to assure them that, when you prepared your timely trea-
tise upon the progress of purple chasubles among the Feejee
Islanders, you were not justiy amenable to the charge of
omittmg all notice of the cultivation of artificial flowers by

X LETTER TO BEV. CBEAH CHEESE.

the Crim Tartars. The l9.tter are, I believe, a very esti
mable people, but they were not the subjects of your
consideration.

To those in your parish, and elsewhere,^ who have
thought fit to suppose that Mrs. Fotiphar is Mrs. Some-
body-else — what can we say? conscious as we are, that
they who have once known that lady could never confound
her with another.

But for those who have actually supposed you, yourself.
Reverend Sir, to be, not somebody else, but nobody, (!) we
can only smile compassionately, and express the hope that
a broader experience may give them greater wisdom.

In taking leave of you. Sir, I know that I express the
warmest wish of a large, a very large parish (I might
almost say diocese), that you may long survive. For your
parish is fully, and, as I think, most correctly persuaded,
that while there is a Cream Cheese, there will always be a
Mrs. Potiphar.

With all proper regard,
I am,
Reverend and Dear Sir,
Your very obedient,
humble servant,
The Editob.

New York, December^ 1853

"OUR BEST SOCIETY.'

"OUR BEST society;'

If gilt were only gold, or sugar-candy common
sense, what a fine thing our society would be ! If
to lavish money upon ohjets de vertu^ to wear the
most costly dresses, and always to have them cut in
the height of the fashion ; to build houses thirty feet
broad, as if they were palaces ; to furnish them with
all the luxurious devices of Parisian genius ; to give
superb banquets, at which your guests laugh, and
which make you miserable ; to drive a fine carriage
and ape European liveries, and crests, and coats-
of-arms; to resent the friendly advances of your
baker's wife, and the lady of your butcher (you be-
ing yourself a cobbler's daughter) ; to talk much of
the " old families" and of your aristocratic foreign
friends; to despise labor; to prate of "good so-
'ciety ;" to travesty and parody, in every conceivable
way, a society which we know only in books and
by the superficial observation of foreign travel,
which arises out of a social organization entirely

2 THE POTIPHAB PAPEES.

anknown to us, and which is opposed to our fun-
damental and essential principles ; if all this were
fine, what a prodigiously fine society would ours
be!

This occurred to us upon lately receiving a card
of invitation to a brilliant ball. We were quietly
ruminating over our evening fire, with Disraeli's
Wellington speech, " all tears," in our hands, with
the account of a great man's burial, and a little
man's triumph across the channel. So many great
men gone, we mused, and such great crises impend-
ing ! This democratic movement in Europe ; Kos-
suth and Mazzini waiting for the moment to give
the word ; the Kussian bear watchfully sucking his
paws ; the Napoleonic empire redivivus ; Cuba, and
annexation, and Slavery ; California and Australia,
and the consequent considerations of political
economy; dear me! exclaimed we, putting on a
fresh hodful of coal, we must look a little into the
state of parties.

As we put down the coal-scuttle, there was a
knock at the door. We said, " come in," and in
came a neat Alhambra-watered envelope, contain-
ing the announcement that the queen of fashion was
" at home" that evening week. Later in the even-
ing,, came a friend to smoke a cigar. The card was
Ijring upon the table, and he read it with eagerness.

OUB BEST SOCIETY.'* * 8

" You'll go, of course," said he, " for you will meet
all the * best society,' "

Shall we, truly ? Shall we really see the ** best
society of the city," the picked flower of its genius,
cEaracter, and beauty? What makes the " best so-
ciety" of men and women ? The noblest specimens
of each, of course. The men who mould the time,
who refresh our faith in heroism and virtue, who
make Plato, and Zeno, and Shakespeare, and all
Shakespeare's gentlemen, possible again. The wo-
men, whose beauty, and sweetness, and dignity, and
high accomplishment, and grace, make us under-
stand the Greek mythology, and weaken our desire
to have some glimpse of the most famous women of
history. The " best society" is that in which the
virtues are most shining, which is the most chari-
table, forgiving, long-suflfering, modest, and inno-
cent. The " best society" is, by its very name, that
in which there is the least hypocrisy and insincerity
of all kinds, which recoils fronr, and blasts, artifici-
ality, which is anxious to be all that it is possible
to be, and which sternly reprobates all shallow pre-
tence, all coxcombry and foppery, and insists upon
simplicity as the infallible characteristic of true
worth. That is the " best society," which com-
prises the best men and women.

Had we recently arrived from the moon, we

i « TH£ POTIPHAB PAPERS.

might, upon hearing that we were to meet the
'< best society/' have fancied that we were about to
enjoy an opportunity not to be overvalued. But
unfortunately we were not so freshly arrived. We
had received other cards, and had perfected our
toilette many times, to meet this same society, so
magnificently described, and had found it the least
" best" of alL Who compose it ? Whom shall we
meet if we go to this ball ? We shall meet three
classes of persons : first, those who are rich, and
who have all that money can buy ; second, those
who belong to what are technically called <^the
good old families," because some ancestor was a
man of mark in the state or country, or was very
rich, and has kept the fortune in the family; and,
thirdly, a swarm of youths who can dance dexter-
ously, and who are invited for that purpose. Now
these are all arbitrary and factitious distinctions
upon which to found so profound a social difference
as that which exists in American, or, at least in
New York, society. First, as a general rule, the
rich men of every community, who make their own
money, are not the most generally intelligent and
cultivated. They have a shrewd talent which se-
cures a fortune, and which keeps them closely at
the work of amassing from their youngest years until
they are old. They are sturdy men, of simple

"OUB BEST SOCIETY." . 6

tastes often. Sometimes, though rarely, very gener-
ous, but necessarily with an altogether false and
exaggerated idea of the importance of money.
They are a rather rough, unsympathetic, and, per-
haps, selfish class, who, themselves, despise purple
and fine linen, and still prefer a cot-bed and a bare
room, although they may be worth millions. But
they are married to scheming, or ambitious, or dis-
appointed, women, whose life is a prolonged pageant,
and they are dragged hither and thither in it, are
bled of their golden blood, and forced into a position
they do not covet and which they despise. Then
there are the inheritors of wealth. How many of
them inherit the valiant genius and hard frugality
which built up their fortunes ; how many acknow-
ledge the stem and heavy responsibility of their op-
portunities ; how many refuse to dream their lives
away in a Sybarite luxury ; how many are smitten
with the lofty ambition of achieving an enduring
name by works of a permanent value ; how many do
not dwindle into dainty dilettanti, and dilute their
manhood with factitious sentimentality instead of a
hearty, human sympathy; how many are not satis-
fied with having the fastest horses and the " crack-
est" carriages, and an unlimited wardrobe, and a
weak affectation and puerile imitation of foreign
life?

6 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

And who are these of our secondly, these ^* old
families" ? The spirit of our time and of our coun-
try knows no such thing, but the habitu6 of <^ so-
ciety" hears constantly of "a good family." It
means simply, the collective mass of children, grand-
children, nephews, nieces, and descendants, of some
man who deserved well of his country, and whom
his country honors. But sad is the heritage of a
great name! The son of Burke will inevitably be
measured by Burke. The niece of Pope must show
some superiority to other women (so to speak), or
her equality is inferiority. The feeling of men at-
tributes some magical charm to blood, and we look
to see thQ daughter of Helen as fair as her mother,
and the son of Shakespeare musical as his sire. If
they are not so, if they are merely names, and com-
mon persons — if there is no Burke, nor Shakespeare,
nor Washington, nor Bacon, in their words, or ac-
tions, or lives, then we must pity them, and pass
gently on, not upbraiding them, but regretting that
it is one of the laws of greatness that it dwindles all
things in its vicinity, which would otherwise show
large enough. Nay, in our regard for the great
man, we may even admit to a compassionate honor,
as pensioners upon our charity, those who bear and
transmit his name. But if these heirs should pre-
sume upon that fame, and claim any precedence of

"OUB BEST SOCIETY," 7

living men and women because their dead grand-
father was a hero— they must be shown the door
directly* We should dread to be bom a Percy, or
a Colonna, or a Bonaparte. We should not like to
be the second Duke of Wellington, nor Charles
Dickens, jr. It is a terrible thing, one would say,
to a mind of honorable feeling, to be pointed out as
somebody's son, or uncle, or granddaughter, as if
the excellence were*all derived. It must be a little
humiliating to reflect that if your great uncle had
not been somebody, you would be nobody — ^that, in
fact, you are only a name, and that, if you should
consent to change it for the sake of a fortune, as is
sometimes done, you would cease to be anything
but a rich man. "My father was President, or
Governor of the State," some pompous man may
say. But, by Jupiter ! king of gods and men, what
are you ? is the instinctive response. Do you not
see, our pompous friend, that you are only pointing
your own unimportance ? If your father was Gov-
ernor of the State, what right have you to use that
fact only to fatten your self-conceit? Take care,
good care ; for wl^ether you say it by your lips or
by your life, that withering response awaits you —
" then what are yow?" If your ancestor was great,
you are under bonds to greatness. If you are small,
make haste to learn it betimes, and, thanking heaven

8 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS

that your name has been made illustrious, retire
into a. corner and keep it, at least, untarnished.

Our thirdly, is a class made by sundry French
tailors, bootmakers, dancing-masters, and Mr. Brown.
They are a corps-de-ballet, for the use of private
entertainments. ♦^They are fostered by society for
the use of young debutantes, and hardier damsels,
who have dared two or three years of the " tight"
polka. They are cultivated for their heels, not
their heads. Their life begins at ten o'clock in the
evening, and lasts until four in the morning. They
go home and sleep until nine; then they reel,
sleepy, to counting-houses and offices, and doze on
desks until dinner-time. Or, unable to do that,
they are actively at work all day, and their cheeks
grow pale, and their lips thin, and their eyes blood-
shot and hollow, and they drag themselves home at
evening to catch a nap until the ball begins, or to
dine and smoke at their club, and be very manly
with punches and coarse stories ; and then to rush
into hot and glittering rooms, and seize very decollete
girls closely around the waist, and dash with them
around an area of stretched linen, saying in the
panting pauses, "How very hot it is!" "How
very pretty Miss Podge looks!" "What a good
redowa !" " Are you going to Mrs. Potiphar's ?"

Is this the assembled fiower of manhood and

"OUR BEST SOCIETY, 9

womanhood, called " best society," and to see which
is so envied a privilege ? If such are the elements,
can we be long in arriving at the present state, and
necessary future condition of parties ?

" Vanity Fair" is peculiarly a picture of modem
society. It aims at English follies, but its mark is
universal, as the madness is. It is called a satire,
but, after much dUigent reading, we cannot discover
the satire. A state of society not at all superior to
that of "Vanity Fair" is not unknown to our expe-
rience; and, unless truth-telling be satire; unless
the most tragically real portraiture be satire ; unless
scalding tears of sorrow, and the bitter regret of a
manly mind over the miserable spectacle of arti-
ficiality, wasted powers, misdirected energies, and
lost opportunities, be satirical ; we do not find satire
in that sad story. The reader closes it with a grief
beyond tears. It leaves a vague apprehension in
the mind, as if we should suspect the air to be
poisoned. It suggests the terrible thought of the
enfeebling of moral power, and the deterioration of
noble character, as a necessary consequence of con-
tact with "society." Every man looks suddenly
and sharply around him, and accosts himself and his
neighbors, to ascertain if they are all parties to this
corruption. Sentimental youths and maidens, upon
velvet sofas, or in calf-bound libraries, resolve that

10 THE POTIPHAB PAPEBS.

it is an insult to human nature— are sure that their
velvet and calf-bound friends are not like the dra-
matis personae of " Vanity Fair," and that the drama
is therefore hideous and unreal. They should re-
member, what they uniformly and universally for-
get, that we are not invited, upon the rising of the
curtain, to behold a cosmorama, or picture of the
world, but a representation of that part of it called
Vanity Fair. What its just limits are — how far its
poisonous purlieus reach — ^how much of the world's
air is tainted by it, is a question which every
thoughtful man will ask himself, with a shudder,
and look sadly around, to answer. If the senti-
mental objectors rally again to the charge, and de-
clare that, if we wish to improve the world, its
virtuous ambition must be piqued and stimulated by
making the shining heights of "the ideal" more
radiant; we reply, that none shall surpass us in
honoring the men whose creations of beauty inspire
and instruct mankind. But if they benefit the
world, it is no less true that a vivid apprehension
of the depths into which we are sunken or may
sink, nerves the soul's courage quite as much as the
alluring mirage of the happy heights we may attain.
"To hold the mirror up to Nature," is still the
most potent method of shaming sin and strengthen-
ing virtue.

"OUR BEST SOCIETY." H

If " Vanity Fair" be a satire, what novel of socie-
ty is not? Are "Vivian Grey," and "Pelham,"
and the long catalogue of books illustrating Eng-
lish, or the host of Balzacs, Sands, Sues, and
Dumas, that paint French society, less satires?
Nay, if you should catch any dandy in Broadway,
or in Pall-Mali, or upon the Boulevards, this very
morning, and write a coldly true history of his life
and actions, his doings and undoings, would it not
be the most scathing and tremendous satire ? — ^if by
satire you mean the consuming melancholy of the
conviction, that the life of that pendant to a mous-
tache is an insult to the possible life of a man.

We have read of a hypocrisy so thorough, that it
was surprised you should think it hypocritical : and
we have bitterly thought of the saying, when hear-
ing one mother say of another mother's child, that
she had " made a good match," because the girl
was betrothed to a stupid boy whose father was
rich. The remark was the key of our social feel-
ing.

Let us look at it a little, and, first of all, let the
reader consider the criticism, and not the critic.
We may like very well, in our individual capacity,
to partake of the delicacies prepared by our
hostess's chef^ we may not be averse to ;pat6 and
myriad ohjets de g&du and if you caught us in a

12 THE POTIPHAB PAPEBS

comer at the next ball, putting away a fair share of
dinde aux truffes^ we know you would have at us in
a tone of great moral indignation, and wish to know
why we sneaked into great houses, eating good
suppers, and drinking choice wines, and then went
away with an indigestion, to write dyspeptic dis-
gusts at society.

We might reply that it is necessary to know
something of a subject before writing about it, and
that if a man wished to describe the habits of South
Sea Islanders, it is useless to go to Greenland ; we
might also confess a partiality for pcue^ and a ten-
derness for truffes, and acknowledge that, consider-
ing our single absence would not put down extravar
gant, pompous parties, we were not strong enough
to let the morsels drop into unappreciating mouths ;
or we might say, that if a man Invited us to see his
new house, it would not be ungracious nor insult-
ing to his hospitality, to point out whatever weak
parts we might detect in it, nor to declare our can-
did conviction, that it was built upon wrong princi-
ples and could not stand. He might believe us if
we had been in the house, but he certainly would
not, if we had never seen it. Nor would it be a
very wise reply upon his part, that we might build
a better if we didn't like that. We are not fond of
David's pictures, but we certainly could never paint

"OUB BEST SOCIETY." 13

half 60 well ; nor of Pope's poetry, but posterity
will never hear of our verses. Criticism is not con-
struction, it is observation. If we could surpass in
its own way everything which displeased us, we
should make short work of it, and instead of show-
ing what fatal blemishes deform our present socie-
ty, we should present a specimen of perfection,
directly.

We went to the brilliant ball. There was too
much of everything. Too much light, and eating,
and drinking, and dancing, and flirting, and dress-
ing, and feigning, and smirking, and much too many
people. Good taste insists first upon fitness. But
why had Mrs. Potiphar given this ball? We in-
quired industriously, and learned it was because she
did not give one last year. Is it then essential to
do this thing biennially? inquired we with some
trepidation. " Certainly," was the bland reply,
" or society will forget you." Every body was un-
happy at Mrs. Potiphar's, save a few girls and boys,
who danced violently all the evening. Those who
did not dance walked up and down the rooms as
well as they could, squeezing by non-dancing ladies,
causing them to swear in their hearts as the brusque
broadcloth carried away the light outworks of gauze
and gossamer. The dowagers, ranged in solid pha-
lanx, occupied all the chairs and sofas against the

14 THE POTIPHAB PAPEBS.

wall, and fanned themselves until supper-time,
looking at each other's diamonds, and criticising the
toilettes of the younger ladies, each narrowly
watching her peculiar Polly Jane, that she did not
betray too much interest in any man who was not
of a certain fortune. — ^It is the cold, vulgar truth,
madam, nor are we in the slightest degree exagger-
ating. — ^Elderly gentlemen, twisting single gloves in
a very wretched manner, came up and bowed to
the dowagers, and smirked, and said it was a pleas^
ant party, and a handsome house, and then clutched
their hands behind them, and walked miserably
away, looking as affable as possible. And the dow-
agers made a little fun of the elderly gentlemen,
among themselves, as they walked away.

Then came the younger non-dancing men — a
class of the community who wear black cravats
and waistcoats, and thrust their thumbs and fore-
fingers in their waistcoat-pockets, and are called
" talking men." Some of them are literary, and
affect the philosopher; have, perhaps, written a
book or two, and are a small species of lion to
very young ladies. Some are of the hlase kind;
men who affect the extremest elegance, and are
reputed " so aristocratic," and who care for nothing
in particular, but wish they had not been born
gentlemen, in which case they might have escaped

«OUE BEST SOCIETY." 16

ennui. These gentlemen stand with hat in hand,
and their coats and trowsers are unexceptionable.
They are the " so gentlemanly" persons of whom
one hears a great deal, but which seems to mean
nothing but cleanliness. Vivian Grey and Pelham
are the models of their ambition, and they succeed
in being Pendennis. They enjoy the reputation of
being " very clever," and " very talented fellows,"
and " smart chaps ;" but they refrain from proving
what is so generously conceded. They are often
men of a certain cultivation. They have travelled,
many of them — spending a year or two in Paris,
and a month or two in the rest of Europe. Conse-
quently they endure society at home, with a smile,
and a shrug, and a graceful superciliousness, which
is very engaging. They are perfectly at home, and
they rather despise Young America, which, in the
next room, is diligently earning its invitation.
They prefer to hover about the ladies who did not
come out this season, but are a little used to the
world, with whom they are upon most friendly
terms, and they criticise together, very freely, all
the great events in the great world of fashion.

These elegant Pendennises we saw at Mrs. Poti-
phar's, but not without a sadness which can hardly
be explained. They had been boys once, all of
them, fresh and frank-hearted, and full of a noble

16 THE POTIPHAB PAPSB8.

ambition. They had read and pondered the histo-
ries of great men; how they resolved, and strug-
gled, and achieved. In the pure portraiture of
genius, they had loved and honored noble women,
and each young heart was sworn to truth and the
ervice of beauty. Those feelings were chivalric
and fair. Those bo3rish instincts clung to whatever
was lovely, and rejected the specious snare, how-
ever graceful and elegant. They sailed, new
knights, upon that old and endless crusade against
hypocrisy and the devil, and they were lost in the
luxury of Corinth, nor longer seek the difficult
shores beyond. A present smile was worth a fu-
ture laurel. The ease of the moment was worth
immortal tranquillity. They renounced the stern
worship of the unknown God, and acknowledged
the deities of Athens. But the seal of their shame
is their own smile at their early dreams, and the
high hopes of their boyhood, their sneering, infi-
delity of simplicity, their scepticism of motives
and of men. Youths, whose younger years were
fervid with the resolution to strike and win, to
deserve, at least, a gentle remembrance, if not a
dazzling fame, are content to eat, and drink, and
sleep well ; to go to the opera and all the balls ; to
be known as " gentlemanly," and " aristocratic,"
and " dangerous," and " elegant ;" to cherish a.

"OUE BEST SOCIETY." 17

luxurious and enervating indolence, and to <' suc-
ceed," upon the cheap reputation of having been
"fast" in Paris. The end of such men is evident
enough from the beginning. They are snuffed out
by a " great match," and become an appendage to
a rich woman ; or they dwindle off into old rou6s,
men of the world in sad earnest, and not with ele-
gant affectation, Uase; and as they began Arthur
Pendennises, so they end the Major. But, believe
it, that old fossil heart is wrung sometimes by a
mortal pang, as it remembers those squandered
opportunities and that lost life.

From these groups we passed into the dancing-
room. We have seen, dancing in other countries,
and dressing. We have certainly never seen gen-
tlemen dance so easily, gracefully, and well, as the
American. But the style of dancing, in its whirl,
its rush, its fury, is only equalled by that of the
masked balls at the French opera, and the balls at
the Salle Valentino^ the Jardin MabUle, the Chateau
Rouge^ and other favorite resorts of Parisian Gri-
settes and Lorettes. We saw a few young men
looking upon the dance very soberly, and, upon
inquiry, learned that they were engaged to certain
ladies of ithe corps-de-ballet. Nor did we wonder
that the spectacle of a young woman whirling in a
dScollete state, and in the embrace of a warm youth.

18 THE POTIPHAB PAPBRS.

around a heated room, induced a little sobriety
upon her lover's face, if not a sadness in his heart.
Amusement, recreation, enjoyment ! There are no
more beautiful things. But this proceeding falls
under another head. We watched the various toi-
lets of these bounding belles. They were rich and
tasteful. But a man at our elbow, of experience
and shrewd observation, said, with a sneer, for
which we called him to account, "I observe that
American ladies are so rich in charms that they are
not at all chary of them. It is certainly generous
to us miserable black coats. But, do you know, it
strikes me as a generosity of display that must
necessarily leave the donor poorer in maidenly feel-
ing.'* We thought ourselves cynical, but this was
intolerable ; and ^in a very crisp manner we de-
manded an apology.

" Why," responded our friend with more of sad-
ness than of satire in his tone; " why are you so ex-
asperated ? Look at this scene ! Consider that this
is, really, the life of these girls. This is what they
* come out' for. This is the end of their ambition.
They think of it, dream of it, long for it. Is it
amusement ? Yes, to a few, possibly. But listen
and gather, if you can, from their remarks (when
they make any), that they have any thought beyond
this, and going to church very rigidly on Sunday.

"OUR BEST SOCIETt." 19

The vigor of polking and church-going are propor-
tioned ; as is the one so is the other, My young
friend, I am no ascetic, and do not suppose a man
is damned because he dances. But life is not a ball
(more's the pity, truly, for these* butterflies), nor is
its sole duty and delight, dancing. When I consid-
er this spectacle — when I remember what a noble
and beautiful woman is, what a manly man — ^when
I reel, dazzled by this glare, drunken by these per-
fumes, confused by this alluring music, and reflect
upon the enormous sums wasted in a pompous pro-
fusion that delights no one — when . I look around
upon all this rampant vulgarity in tinsel and Brus-
sels lace, and think how fortunes go, how men
struggle and loose the bloom of their honesty, how
women hide in a smiling pretence, and eye with cans
tic glances their neighbor's newer house, diamonds
or porcelain, and observe their daughters, such as
these — why, I tremble, and tremble, and this scene
to-night, every * crack' ball this winter, will be, not
the pleasant society of men and women, but — even
in this young country — ^an orgie such as rotting
Corinth saw, a frenzied festival of Kome in its de-
cadence."

There was a sober truth in this bitterness, and we
turned away to escape the sombre thought of the
moment. Addressing one of the panting houris

20 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

who stood melting in a window, we spoke (and con
fess how absurdly) of the Dusseldorf Gallery. It
was merely to avoid saying how warm the room
was, and how pleasant the party was, facts upon
which we had already enlarged. " Yes, they are
pretty pictures ; but la ! how long it must have
taken Mr. Dusseldorf to paint them all ;" was the
reply.

By the Farnesian Hercules ! no Roman sylph in
her city's decline would ever have called the sun-god,
Mr. Apollo. We hope that houri melted entirely
away in the window ; but we certainly did not stay
to see.

Passing out toward the supper-room we encoun-
tered two young men. " What, Hal," said one, "yow
at Mrs. Potiphar's ?" It seems that Hal was a sprig
of one of the "old families." "Well Joe," said
Hal, a little confused, " it w a little strange. The
fact is I didn't mean to be here, but I concluded to
compromise by coming, and not being introduced to
the host.^^ Hal could come, eat Potiphar's sup-
per, drink his wines, spoil his carpets, laugh at his
fashionable struggles, and affect the puppyism of a
foreign lord, because he disgraced the name of a
man who had done some service somewhere, while
Potiphar was only an honest man who made a for-
tune.

"OUE BEST SOCIETY." 21

The supper-room was a pleasant place. The
table was covered with a chaos of supper. Every-
thing sweet and rare, and hot and cold, solid and
liquid, was there. It was the very apotheosis of gilt
gingerbread. There was a universal rush and strug-
gle. The charge of the guards at Waterloo was no-
thing to it. Jellies, custard, oyster-soup, ice-cream,
wine and water, gushed in profuse cascades over
transparent precipices o^ttdle, muslin, gauze, silk, and
satin. Clumsy boys tumbled against costly dresses
and smeared them with preserves; when clean
plates failed, the contents of plates already used
were quietly " chucked" under the table — ^heel-taps
of chaiigpagne were poured into the oyster tureens
or overflowed upon plates to clear the glasses— r^wine
of all kinds flowed in torrents, particularly down^the
throats of very young men, who evinced their man-
hood by becoming noisy, troublesome, and disgust-
ing, and were finally either led, sick, into the hat-
room, or carried out of the way, drunk. The supper
over, the young people attended by their matrons
descended to the dancing-room for the " German."
This is a dance commencing usually at midnight or
a little after, and continuing indefinitely toward day-
break. The young people were attended by their
matrons, who were there to supervise the morals
and manners of their charges. To secure the perform-

22 THE POTIPHAE PAPEBS.

ance of this duty, the young people took good care
to sit where the matrons could not see them, nor
did they, by any chance, look toward the quarter
in which the matrons sat. In that quarter, through
all the varying mazes of the prolonged dance, to two
o'clock, to three', to four, sat the bediamonded
dowagers, the mothers, the matrons — against nature,
against common sense. They babbled with each
other, they drowsed,, they dozed. Their fans fell
listless into theirlaps. In the adjoining room, out of
the waking sight, even, of the then sleeping mam-
mas, the daughters whirled in the close embrace of
partners who had brought down bottles of cham-
pagne from the supper-room, and put them by the
side of their chairs for occasional refreshment during
the dance. The dizzy hours staggered by — ** Azalia,
you must come now," had been akeady said a dozen
times, but only as by the scribes. Finally it was
declared with authority. Azalia went — ^Amelia —
Arabella. The rest followed. There was prolong-
ed cloaking, there were lingering farewells. A few
papas were in the supper-room, sitting among the
debris of game. A few young non-dancing husbands
sat beneath gas unnaturally bright, reading what-
ever chance book was at hand, and thinking of the
young child at home waiting for mamma who
was dancing the " German" below. A few exhaust-

«OUE BEST SOCIETY." 23

cd matrons sat in the robing-room, tired, sad, wish-
ing Jane would come up ; assailed at intervals by
a vague suspicion that it was not quite worth while ;
wondering how it was they used to have such good
times at balls; yawning, and looking at their
watches ; while the regular beat of the music below,
with sardonic sadness, continued. At last Jane
came up, had had the most glorious time, and went
down with mamma to the carriage, and so drove
home. Even the last Jane went — ^the last noisy
youth was expelled, and Mr. and Mrs. Potiphar hav-
ing duly performed their biennial social duty, dismiss-
ed the music, ordered the servants to count the
spoons, knd an hour or two after daylight went to
bed. Enviable Mr. and Mrs. Potiphar !

We are now prepared for the great moral indig-
nation of the friend who saw us eating our dinde
aux truffes in that remarkable supper-room. We
are waiting to hear him say in the most moderate
and ** gentlemanly" manner, that it is all very well
to select flaws and present them as specimens, and
to learn from him, possibly with indignant publici-
ty, that the present condition of parties is not what
we have intimaited. Or, in his quiet and pointed
way, he may smile at our fiery assault upon edged
flounces and nuga pyramids, and the kingdom of
Ldlliput in general.

24 THE POTIPHAE PAPEES.

Yet, after all, and despite the youths who are led
out, and carried home, or who stumble through the
" German," this is a sober matter. My friend told
us we should see the " best society." But he is a
prodigious wag. Who make this country ? From
whom is its character of unparalleled enterprise,
heroism, and success derived ? Who have given it
its place in the respect and the fear of the world ?
Who, annually, recruit its energies, confirm its pro-
gress, and secure its triumph? Who are its char-
acteristic children, the pith, the sinew, the bone, of
its prosperity? Who found, and direct, and con-
tinue its manifold institutions of mercy and educa-
tion? Who are, essentially, Americans? Indig-
nant friend, these classes, whoever they may be, are
the " best society," because they alone are the rep-
resentatives of its character and cultivation. They
are the " best society" of New York, of Boston, of
Baltimore, of St. Louis, of New Orleans, whether
they live upon six hundred or svdj thousand dol-
lars a year — whether they inhabit princely houses
in fashionable streets (which they often do), or not —
whether their sons have jgraduated at Celarius's and
the Jardin Mabille, or have never been out of their
fathers' shops — ^whether they have " air" and " style,"
and are " so gentlemanly" and " so aristocratic," or
not. Your shoemaker, your lawyer, your butcher,

"OUE BEST SOCIETY" 25

your clergymen — ^if they are simple and steady, and,
whether rich or poor, are unseduced by the sirens
of extravagance and ruinous display, help make up
the " best society." For that mystic communion is
not composed of the rich, but of the worthy ; and
is *« test" by its virtues, and not by its vices. When
Jolwf^fp, Burke, Goldsmith, Garrick, Reynolds, and
thc^tfriends, met at supper in Goldsmith's rooms,
where was the " best society" in England ? When
George the Fourth outraged humanity and decency
in his treatment of Queen Caroline, who was the
first scoundrel in Europe ?

Pause yet a moment, indignant friend. Whose
habits and principles would- ruin this country as
rapidly as it has been made ? Who are enamored
of a puerile imitation of foreign splendors ? Who
strenuously endeavor to graft the questionable points
of Parisian society upon our own ? Who pass a few
years in Europe and return sceptical of republican -
ism and human improvement, longing and sighing for
more sharply emphasized social distinctions ? Who
squander, with profuse recklessness, the hard-earned
fortunes of their sires ? Who diligently devote
their time to nothing, foolishly and wrongly suppos*
ing that a young English nobleman has nothing to
do ? Who, in fine, evince by their collective con-
duct, that they regard their Americanism as a mis-
2

26 THE POTIPHAB PAPSBS.

fortune, and are so the most deadly enemies of their
country? None but what our wag facetiously
termed " the best society."

If the reader doubts, let him consider its practical
results in any great emporiums of " best society."
Marriage is there regarded as a luxury, too expen-
sive for any but the sons of rich men, or for'Sai^te
young men. We once heard an eminent divine as-
sert, and only half in sport, that the rate of living
was advancing so incredibly, that weddings in hia
experience were perceptibly diminishing. The
reasons might have been many and various. But
we all acknowledge the fact. On the other hand,
and about the same time, a lovely damsel (ah !
Clorinda !) whose father was not wealthy, who had
no prospective means of support, who could do
nothing but polka to perfection, who literally knew
almost nothing, and who constantly shocked every
fairly intelligent person by the glaring ignorance
betrayed in her remarks, informed a friend at one of
the Saratoga balls, whither he had made haste to
meet " the best society," that there were " not more
than three good matches in society." La Dame aux
Camelia^s, Marie Duplessis, was to our fancy a much
more feminine, and admirable, and moral, and hu-
man person, than the adored Clorinda. And yet
what she said was the legitimate result of the state

**OUR BEST SOCIETY." 27

of our fashionable society. It worships wealth, and
the pomp which wealth can purchase, more than
virtue, genius, or beauty. We may be told that
it has always been so in e^ery country, and that the
fine society of all lands is as profuse and flashy as
our own. We deny it, flatly. Neither English,
nor French, nor Italian, nor German society, is so
unspeakably barren as that which is technically call
ed " society" here. In London, and Paris, and Vi
enna, and Rome, all the really eminent men and
women help make up the mass of society. A party
is not a mere ball, but it is a congress of the wit,
beauty, and fame of the capital. It is worth while
to dress, if you shall meet Macaulay, or Hallam, or
Guizot, or Thiers, or Landseer, or Delaroche — ^Mrs.
Norton, the Misses Berry, Madame Recamier, and
all the brilliant women and famous foreigners.
But why should we desert the pleasant pages of
those men, and the recorded gossip of those women,
to be squeezed, flat against a wall, while young
Doughface pours oyster-gravy down our shirt-front,
and Caroline Pettitoes wonders at "Mr. Diissel-
dorf s" industry ?

. If intelligent people decline to go, you justly re
mark, it is their own fault. Yes, but if they stay
away, it is very certainly their great gain. The el-
derly people are always neglected with us, and no-

28 THE POTIPHAB PAFEBS.

thiDg surprises intelligent strangers more than the
tyrannical supremacy of Young America. But we
are not surprised at this neglect. How can we be,
if we have our eyes opetl ? When Caroline Petti-
toes retreats from the floor to the sofa, and instead
of a " polker" figures at parties as a matron, do you
suppose that " tough old Joes" like ourselves are
going to desert the young Caroline upon the floor,
for Madame Pettitoes upon the sofa? If the pretty
young Caroline, with youth, health, freshness, a
fine, budding form, and wreathed in a semi-trans-
parent haze of flounced and flowered gauze, is so
vapid that we prefer to accost her with our eyes
alone, and not with our tongues, is the same Caro-
line married into a Madame Pettitoes, and fanning
herself upon a sofa — no longer particularly fresh,
nor young, nor pretty, and no longer budding, but
very fully blown — ^likely to be fascinating in con-
versation? We cannot wonder that the whole con-
nection of Pettitoes, when advanced to the matron
state, is entirely neglected. Proper homage to age
we can all pay at home, to our parents and grand-
parents. Proper respect for some persons is best
preserved by avoiding their neighborhood.

And what, think you, is the influence of this ex-
travagant expense and senseless show upon these
same young men and women? We can easily dis-

"OUR BEST SOCIETY." 29

cover. It saps their noble ambition, assails their
health, lowers their estimate of men, and their re-
verence for woinen, cherishes an eager and aimless
rivalry, weakens true feeling, wipes away the bloom
of true modesty, and induces an enn\|[, a satiety,
and a kind of dilettante misanthropy, which is only
the more monstrous because it is undoubtedly real.
You shall hear young men of intelligence and cul-
tivation, to whom the unprecedented circumstances
of this country offer opportunities of a great and
beneficent career, complaining that they were born
within this blighted circle ; regretting that they
were not bakers and tallow-chandlers, and under no
obligation to keep up appearances; deliberately
surrendering all the golden possibilities of that fu-
ture which this country, beyond all others, holds
before them ; sighing that they are not rich enough
to marry the girls they love, and bitterly upbraiding
fortune that they are not millionaires; suffering
the vigor of their years to exhale in idle wishes and
pointless regrets; disgracing their manhood by
lying in wait behind their "so gentlemanly" and
" aristocratic" manners, until they can pounce upon
a " fortune" and ensnare an heiress into matrimony :
and so, having dragged their gifts — their horses of
the sun — ^into a service which shames out of them
all their native pride and power, they sink in the

30 THE POTIPHAE PAPEES.

mire ; and their peers and emulators exclaim that
they have " made a good thing of it."

Are these the processes by which a noble race is
made and perpetuated? At Mrs. Potiphar's we
heard sever^ Pendennises longing for a similar lux-
ury, and announcing their firm purpose never to
have wives nor houses until they could have them
as splendid as jewelled Mrs. Potiphar, and her palace,
thirty feet front. Where were their heads, and their
hearts, and their arms ? How looks this craven de-
spondency, before the stern virtues of the ages we
call dark ? When a man is so voluntarily imbecile
as to regret he is not rich, if that is what he wants,
before he has struck a blow for wealth ; or so das-
tardly as to renounce the prospect of love, because,
sitting sighing, in velvet dressing-gown and slippers,
he does not see his way clear to ten thousand a
year : when young women coiffed a merveille, of un-
exceptionable "style," who, with or without a pros-
pective penny, secretly look down upon honest wo-
men who struggle for a livelihood, like noble and
Christian beings, and, as such, are rewarded; in
whose society a man must forget that he has ever
read, thought, or felt ; who destroy in the mind the
fair ideal of woman, which the genius of art, and
poetry, and love, their inspirer has created ; then, it
seems to us, it is high time that the subject should

"OUE BEST society;' 31

be regarded, not as a matter of breaking butterflies
upon the wheel, but as a sad and sober question, in
whose solution, all fathers and mothers, and the
state itself, are interested. When keen observers,
and men of the world, from Europe, are amazed and
appalled at the giddy whirl and frenzied rush of our
society — ^a society singular in history for the exag-
gerated prominence it assigns to wealth, irrespective
of the talents that amassed it, they and their pos-
sessor being usually hustled out of sight-^is it not
quite time to ponder a little upon the Court of Louis
XIV., and the "merrie days" of King Charles 11?
Is it not clear that, if what our good wag, with
caustic irony, called "best society," were really
such, every thoughtful man would read upon Mrs.*
Potiphar's softly-tinted walls the terrible "mene,
mene" of an imminent destruction ?

Venice in her purple prime of luxury, when the
famous law was passed making all gondolas black,
that the nobles should not squander fortunes upon
them, was not more luxurious than New York to-
day. Our hotels haVe a superficial splendor, derived
from a profusion of gilt and paint, wood and da-
mask. Yet, in not one of them can the traveller be
so quietly comfortable as in an English inn, and
nowhere in New York can the stranger procure a
dinner, at once so neat and elegant, and economical,

33 THE POTIPHAB PAPEBS.

as at scores of cafes in Paris. The fever of display
has consumed comfort. A gondola plated with gold
was no easier than a black wooden one. We could
well spare a little gilt upon the walls, for more
cleanliness upon the public table ; nor is it worth
while to cover the walls with mirrors to reflect a
want of comfort. One prefers a wooden bench to
a greasy velvet cushion, and a sanded floor to a soil-
ed and threadbare carpet. An insipid uniformity is
the Procrustes-bed, upon which " society" is stretch-
ed. Every new house is the counterpart of every
other, with the exception of more gilt, if the owner
can afibrd it. The interior arrangement, instead of
being characteristic, instead of revealing something
of the tastes and feelings of the owner, is rigorously
conformed to every other interior. The same hol-
low and tame complaisance rules in the intercourse
of society. Who dares say precisely what he thinks
upon a great topic ? What youth ventures to say
sharp things, of slavery, for instance, at a polite
dinner-table? What girl dares wear curls, when
Martelle prescribes puffs or bandeaux ? What spe-
cimen of Young America dares have his trowsers
loose or wear straps to them ? We want individu-
ality, heroism, and, if necessary, an uncompromising
persistence in difference.
This is the present state of parties. They are

^*OUR BEST SOCIETT." 33

wildly extravagant, full of senseless display ; they
are ,avoided by the pleasant and intelligent, and
swarm with reckless regiments of " Brown's men."
The ends of the earth contribute their choicest pro-
ducts to the supper, and there is everything that
wealth can purchase, and all the spacious splendor
that thirty feet front can aflford. They are hot, and
crowded, and glaring. There is a little weak scan-
dal, venomous, not witty, and a stream of weary
platitude, mortifpng to every sensible person. Will
any of our Pendennis friends intermit their indigna-
tion for a moment, and consider how many good
things they have said or heard during the season ?
If Mr. Potiphar's eyes should chance to fall here,
will he reckon the amount of satisfaction and en-
joyment he derived from Mrs. Potiphar's ball, and
will that lady candidly confess what she gained from
it beside weariness and disgust? What eloquent
sermons we remember to have heard in which the
sins and the sinners of Babylon, Jericho and Gomor-
rah were scathed with holy indignation. The
cloth is very hard upon Cain, and completely
routjs the erring kings of Judah. The Spanish
Inquisition, too, gets frightful knocks, and there
is much eloquent exhortation to preach the
gospel in the interior of Siam. Let it be

preached there and God speed the Word. But
2*

34 THE POTIPHAB PAPEBS.

also let lis have a text or two in Broadway and the
Avenue.

The best sermon ever preached upon society,
within our knowledge, is " Vanity Fair." Is the
spirit of that story less true of New York than of
London? Probably we never see Amelia at our
parties, nor Lieutenant George Osborne, nor good
gawky Dobbin, nor Mrs. Rebecca Sharp Crawley,
nor old Stejme. We are very much pained, of
course, that any author should take such dreary
views of human nature. We, for our parts, all go to
Mrs. Potiphar's to refresh our faith in men and wo-
men. G-enerosity, amiability, a catholic charity,
simplicity, taste, sense, high cultivation, and intelli-
gence, distinguish our parties. The statesman seeks
their stimulating influence ; the literary man, after
the day's labor, desires the repose of their elegant
conversation; the professional man and the mer-
chant hurry up from down town to shuffle off the
coil of heavy duty, and forget the drudgery of life
in the agreeable picture of its amenities and graces
presented by Mrs. Potiphar's ball. Is this account
of the matter,* or " Vanity Fair," the satire ? What
are the prospects of any society of which that tale is
the true history?

There is a picture in the Luxembourg gallery at
Paris, '* The Decadence of the Romans," which made

"OUR BEST SOCIETY." 36

the fame and fortune of Couture, the painter. It
represents an orgie in the court of a temple, during
the last days of Rome. A swarm of revellers occupy
the middle of the picture, wreathed in elaborate in-
tricacy of luxurious posture, men and women inter
mingled ; their faces, in which the old Roman fire
scarcely flickers, brutalized with excess of every
kind; their heads of dishevelled hair bound with
coronals of leaves, while, from goblets of an antique
grace, they drain the fiery torrent which is destroy-
ing them. Around the bacchanalian feast stand,
lofty upon pedestals, the statues of old Rome, look-
ing, with marble calmness and the severity of a re-
buke beyond words, upon the revellers. A youth of
boyish grace, with a wreath woven in his tangled
hair, and with red and drowsy eyes, sits listless upon
one pedestal, while upon another stands a boy in-
sane with drunkenness, and proffering a dnpping
goblet to the marble mouth of the statue. In the
comer of the picture, as if just quitting the court —
Rome finally departing — is a group of Romans with
care-worn brows, and hands raised to their faces in
melancholy meditation. In the foreground of the
picture, which is painted with all the sumptuous
splendor of Venetian art, is a stately vase, around
which hangs a festoon of gorgeous flowers, its end
dragging upon the pavement. In the backgroundt

36 THE POTIPHAB PAPEBS.

between the columns, smiles the blue sky of Italy —
the only thing Italian not deteriorated by time. The
careful student of this picture, if he have been long
in Paris, is some day startled by detecting, especially
in the faces of the women represented, a surprising
likeness to the women of Paris, and perceives, with
a thrill of dismay, that the models for this picture of
decadent human nature are furnished by the very
city in which he lives.

n.

OUR NEW LIVEEY, AND OTHEE THINGS.

A LETTER FROM MRS. POTIPHAR TO MI 88
» CAROLINE PETTITOES.

OUE NEW LIVERY,AND OTHER THINGS

▲ LSTTIR FROM HRS. POTIPHAR TO HISS CAROLINS
FSTTITOSS.

New York, April.

My bear Caroline, — ^Lent came so frightfully
early this year, that I was very much afraid my new
bomiet, d Plmperatrice would not be out from Paris
soon enough. But fortunately it arrived just in
time, and I had the satisfaction of taking down the
pride of Mrs. Croesus, who fancied hers would be
the only stylish hat in church the first Sunday.
She could not keep her eyes away from me, and I
sat so unmoved, and so calmly looking at the Doctor,
that she was quite vexed. But, whenever she turn-
ed away, I ran my eyes over the whole congregation,
and would you believe that, almost without an ex-
ception, people had their old things? However, I
suppose they forgot how soon Lent was coming. As
I was passing out of church, Mrs. CrcBsus brushed
by me.

"Ah I" said she, "good morning. Why, bless me '
you've got that pretty hat I saw at Lawson's.

40 THE POTIPHAR PAPEBS.

Well, now, it's really quite pretty; Lawson has
some taste left yet ; what a lovely sermon the Doc-
tor gave US. By-the-by, did you know that Mrs.
Gnu has actually bought the blue velvet ? It's too
bad, because I wanted to cover my prayer-book with
blue, and she sits so near, the effect of my book wUl
be quite spoiled. Dear me * there she is beckoning
to me : good-by, do come and see us ; Tuesdays,
you know. Well, Lawson really does very well."

I was so mad with the old thing, that I could not
help catching her by her mantle and holding on
while I whispered, loud enough for everybody to
hear :

" Mrs. Croesus, you see I have just got my bon-
net from Paris. It's made after the Empress's. If
you would like to have yours made over in the
fashion, dear Mrs. Croesus, I shall be so glad to lend
you mine."

** No, thank you, dear," said she, " Lawson won't
do for me. By-by."

And so she slipped out, and, I've no doubt, told
Mrs. Gnu that she had seen my bonnet at Lawson's.
Isn't it too bad? Then she is so abominably cool.
Somehow, when I'm talking with Mrs. Croesus, who
has all her own things made at home, I don't feel
as if mine came from Paris at all. She has such a
way of looking at you, that it's quite dreadful. She

OUR NEW LIVERY, ETC. 41

seems to be saying in her mind, " La ! now, well
done, little dear." And I think that kind of mental
reservation (I think that's what they call it) is an
insupportable impertinence. However, I don't care,
do you ?

I've so many things to tell you that I hardly know
where to begin. The great thing is the livery, but
I want to come regularly up to that, and forget no-
thing by the way. I was uncertain for a long time
how to have my prayer-book bound. Finally, after
thinking about it a great deal, I concluded to have
it done in pale blue velvet, with gold clasps, and a
gold cross upon the side. To be sure, it's nothing
very new. But what is new now-a-days? Sally
Shrimp has had hers done in emerald, and I know
Mrs. Croesus will have crimson for hers, and those
people who sit next us in church (I wonder who
they are; it's very unpleasant to sit next to people
you don't know ; and, positively, that girl, the dark-
haired one with large eyes, carries the same muff
she did last year ; it's big enough for a family) have
a kind of brown morocco binding. I must tell you
one reason why I fixed upon the pale blue. You
know that aristocratic-looking young man, in white
cravat, and black pantaloons and waistcoat, whom
we saw at Saratoga a year ago, and who always had
such a beautiful sanctimonious look, and such small

42 THE POTIPHAB PAPEBS.

white hands; well, he is a minister, as we supposed,
" an unworthy candidate, an unprofitable husband-
man," as he calls himself in that delicious voice of
his. He has been quite taken up among us. He
has been asked a good deal to dinner, and there was
hope of Kis being settled as colleague to the Doctor,
only Mr. Potiphar (who can be stubborn, you know)
insisted that the Rev. Cream Cheese, though a very
good young man, he didn't doubt, was addicted to
candlesticks. I suppose that's something awful.
But, could you believe anything awful of him ? I
asked Mr. Potiphar what he meant by saying such
things.

" I mean," said he, ** that he's a Puseyite, and
I've no idea of being tied to the apron-strings of the
Scarlet Woman."

Dear Caroline, who is the Scarlet Woman ! Dear-
est, tell me, upon your honor, if you have ever
heard any scandal of Mr. Potiphar.

" What is it about candlesticks ?" said I to Mr.
Potiphar. " Perhaps Mr. Cheese finds gas too bright
for his eyes; and that's his misfortune, not his
fault."

"Polly," said Mr. Potiphar — ^who will call me
Polly, although it sounds so very vulgar — " please
not to meddle with things you don't understand.
You may have Cream Cheese to dinner as much as

I

OUB NEW LIVEEY, ETC. 43

you choose, but I will not have him in the pulpit
of my church."

The same day, Mr. Cheese happened in about
lunch-time, and I asked him if his eyes were really
weak.

"Not at all," said he, " why do you ask ?"

Then I told him that I had heard he was so fond
of candlesticks.

Ah! Caroline, you should have seen him then.
He stopped in the midst of pouring out a glass of
Mr. P.'s best old port, and holding the decanter in
one hand, and the glass in the other, he looked so
beautifully sad, and said in that sweet low voice :

" Dear Mrs. Potiphar, the blood of the martyrs is
the seed of the church." Then he filled up his glass,
and drank the wine off with such a mournful, re-
signed air, and wiped his lips so gently with his
cambric handkerchief (I saw that it was a hem-
stitch), that I had no voice to ask him to take a bit
of the cold chicken, which he did, however, with-
out my asking him. But when he said in the same
low voice, " A little more breast, dear Mrs. Poti-
phar," I was obliged to run into the drawing-room
for a moment, to recover myself.

Well, after he had lunched, I told him that I
wished to take his advice upon something connected
with the church (for a prayer-book w, you know,

44 THE POTIPHAB PAPBBS.

dear), and he looked so sweetly at me, that, would
you believe it, I almost wished to be a Catholic, and
to confiRSs three or four times a week, and to bave
him for my confessor. But it's very wicked to w^ish
to be a Catholic, and it wasn't real much, you
know : but somehow I thought so. When I asked
him in what velvet he would advise me to have my
prayer-book bound, he talked beautifully for about
twenty minutes. I wish you could have heard him.
I'm not sure that I understood much of what he
said — ^how should I? — but it was very beautiful.
Don't laugh. Carry, but there was one thing I did
understand, and which, as it came pretty often,
quite helped me through: it was, "Dear Mr "=5. Poti-
phar ;" you can't tell how nicely he says it. He
began by telling me that it was very important to
consider all the details and little things abou,t the
church. He said they were all timbales or cymbals
— or something of that kind ; and then he talked
very prettily about the stole, and the violet and scarlet
capes of the cardinals, and purple chasubleis, and the
lace edge of the Pope's little short gown ; and— do
you know it was very funny — ^but it seemed to me,
somehow, as if I was talking with Portier or Florine
Lefevre, except that he used such beautiful words.
Well, by and by, he said : —
" Therefore, dear Mrs. Potiphar, as your faith is

OUB NEW LIVEET, ETC. 45

SO pure and childlike, and as I observe that the
light from the yellow panes usually falls across
your pew, I would advise that you cymbalize your
faith (wouldn't that be noisy in church ?) by bind-
ing your prayer-book in pale blue ; the color of
skim-milk, dear Mrs. Potiphar, which is so full of
pastoral associations."

Why did he emphasize the word "pastoral?"
Do you wonder that I like Cream Cheese, dear
Caroline, when he is so gentle and religious — and
such a pretty religion, too ! For he is not only
well-dressed, and has such aristocratic hands and
feet, in the parlor, but he is so perfectly gentle-
manly in the pulpit. He never raises his voice too
loud, and he has such wavy gestures. Mr. Potiphar
says that may be all very true, but he knows per-
fectly well that he has a hankering for artificial
flowers, and that, for his part, he prefers the Doc-
tor to any preacher he ever heard ; " because," he
says, " I can go quietly to sleep, confident that he
will say nothing that might not be preached from
every well-regulated pulpit ; whereas, if we should
let Cream Cheese into the desk, I should have to
keep awake to be on the lookout for sonie of these
new-fangled idolatries : and, Polly Potiphar, I, for
one, am determined to have nothing to do with the
Scarlet Woman."

46 THE POTIPHAR FAFEBS.

Darling Caroline — I don't care much — ^but did
he ever have anything to do with a Scarlet VVo-
man?

After he said that about artificial flowers, I
ordered from Martelle the sweetest sprig of im"
mortdle he had in his shop, and sent it anony-
mously on St. Valentine's day. Of course I didn't
wish to do anything secret from my husband, that
might make people talk, so. I wrote — "Reverend
Cream Cheese ; from his grateful Sktm-miUc.^^ I
marked the last words, and hope he understood
that that I meant to express my thanks for his
advice about the pale-blue cover. You don't think
it was too romantic, do you, dear ?

You can imagine how pleasantly Lent is passing
since I see so much of him : and then it is so appro-
priate to Lent to be intimate with a minister. He
goes with me to church a great deal ; for Mr. Poti-
phar, of course, has no time for that, except on
Sundays; and it is really delightful to see such
piety. He makes the responses in the most musical
manner; and when he kneels upon entering the
pew, he is the admiration of the whole church.
He buries his face entirely in a cloud of cambric
pocket-handkerchief, with his initial embroidered at
the corner ; and his hair is beautifully parted down
behind, which is very fortunate, as otherwise it

^i^mm

OUB NEW LIVBEY, ETC. 47

would look SO badly when only half his head
showed. I feel so good when I sit by his side ;
and when the Doctor (as Mr. P. says) " blows up"
those terrible sinners in Babylon and other Bible
towns, I always find the Rev. Cream's eyes fixed
upon me, with so much sweet sadness, that I am
very, very sorry for the naughty people the Doctor
talks about. Why did they do so, do you suppose,
dear Caroline ? How thankful we ought to be that
we live now with so many churches, and such fine
ones, and with such gentlemanly ministers as Mr.
Cheese. And how nicely it's arranged that, after
dancing and dining for two or three months con-
stantly, during which, of course, we can only go
to church Sundays, there comes a time for stopping,
when we're tired out, and for going to church every
day, and (as Mr. P. says) ** striking a balance ;" and
thinking about being good, and all those things.
We don't lose a great deal, you know. It makes a
variety, and we all see each other, just the same,
only we don't dance. I do think it would be bet-
ter if we took our lorgnettes with us, however ; for
it was only last Wednesday, at nine o'clock prayers,
that I saw Sheena Silke across the church, in their
little pew at the corner, and I am sure that she had
a new bonnet on; and yet, though I looked at it
all the time, trying to find out, prayers were fairly

48 THE POTIPHAR PAPERS.

over before I discovered whether it was really new,
or only that old white one made over with a few
new flowers. Now, if I had had my glass, I could
have told in a moment, and shouldn't have been
obliged to lose all the prayers.

But, as I was saying, those poor old people in
Babylon and Nineveh ! only think, if they had had
the privilege of prayers for six or seven weeks in
Lent, and regular preaching the rest of the year,
except, of course, in the summer — (by-the-by, I
wonder if they all had some kind of Saratoga or
Newport to go to ? — ^I mean to ask Mr. Cheese) —
they might have been good, and all have been
happy. It's quite awful to hear how eloquent and
earnest the Doctor is when he preaches against
Babylon. Mr. P. says he likes to have him " pitch
into those old sinners ; it does 'em so much good :"
and then he looks quite fierce. Mr. Cheese is going
to read me a sermon he has written upon the maid-
enhood of Lot's wife. He says that he quotes a
great deal of poetry in it, and that I must dam up
the fount of my tears when he reads it. It was
an odd expression for a minister, wasn't it? and I
was obliged to say, " Mr. Cheese, you forgot your-
self." He replied, "Dear Mrs. Potiphar, I will
explain;" and he did so; so that I admired him
more than ever.

OUB NEW LIVERY, ETC. 49

Deadest Caroline — if you should only like him !
He asked one day about you ; and when I told him
what a dear, good girl you are, he said : " And her
father has worldly possessions, has he not ?"

I answered, yes ; that your father was very rich.
Then he sighed, and said that he could never marry
an heiress unless he clearly saw it to be his duty.
Isn't it a beautiful resignation ?

I had no idea of sapng so much about him, but
you know it's proper, when writing a letter in Lent,
to talk about religious matters. And, I must con-
fess, there is something comfortable in having to do
with such things. Don't you feel, better, when
you've been dancing all the week, and dining, and
going to the opera, and flirting and flying around, to
go to church on Sundays ? I do. It seems, some-
how, as if we ought to go. But I do wish Mrs.
Croesus would sit somewhere else than just in front
of us ; for her new bonnets and her splendid collars
and capes make me quite miserable, and then she
puts me out of conceit of my things by talking
about Lawson, or somebody, as I told you in the
beginning.

Mr. Potiphar has sent out for the new carpets.
I had only two spoiled at my ball, you know, and
that was very little. One always expects to sacri-
fice at least two carpets upon occasion of seeing
3

60 THE POTIPHAR PAPERS.

one's friends. The handsome one in the supper-
room was entirely ruined. Would you believe that
Mr. P., when he went down stairs the next morning
found our Fred, and his cousin hoeing it with their
little hoes ? It was entirely matted with preserves
and things, and the boys said they were scraping it
clean for breakfast. The other spoiled carpet "was
in the gentlemen's dressing-room where the punch-
bowl was. Young Gauche Boosey, a very gentle-
manly fellow, you know, ran up after polking, and
was so confused with the light and heat that he went
quite unsteadily, and as he was trying to fill a glass
with the silver ladle (which is rather heavy), he
somehow leaned too hard upon the table, and down
went the whole thing, table, bowl, punch, and Boo-
sey, and ended my poor carpet. I was sorry for
that, and also for the bawl, which was a very hand-
some one, imported from China by my father's part-
ner — a wedding-gift to me — and for the table, a
delicate rosewood stand, which was a work-table of
my sister Lucy's — whom you never knew, and who
died long and long ago. However, I was amply
repaid by Boosey's drollery afterwards. He is
a very witty young man, and when he got up
from the floor, saturated with punch (his clothes
I mean), he looked down at the carpet and
said:

OUR NEW LIVEET, ETC. 51

"Well, I've given that such a puncK it will want
some lemon-aid to recover."

I suppose he had some idea about lemon acid
taking out spots

But, the best thing was what he had said to me.
He is so droll that he insisted upon coming down, and
finishing the dance just as he was. The funny fel-
low brushed against all the dresses in his way, and,
finally, said to me, as he pointed to a lemon-seed
upon his coat :

"I feel so very lemon-choly for what I have
done."

I laughed very much (you were in the other
room), but Mr. P. stepped up and ordered him to
leave the house. Boosey said he would do no such
thing ; and I have no doubt we should have had a
scene, if Mr. P. had not marched him straight to the
door, and put him into a carriage, and told the dri-
ver where to take him. Mr. P. was red enough
when he came back.

" No man shall insult me or my guests, by get-
ting drunk in my house," said he ; and he has since
asked me not to invite Boosey nor '* any of his
kind," as he calls them, to our house. However,
I think it will pass over. I tell him that all young
men of spirit get a litle excited with wine some-
times, and he mustn't be too hard upon them.

52 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

" Madame," said he to me, the first time I ven-
tured to say that, **no man with genuine self-re-
spect ever gets drunk twice ; and if you had the
faintest idea of the misery which a little elegant in-
toxication has produced in scores of families that you
know, you would never insinuate again that a little
excitement from wine is an agreeable thing. There's
your friend Mrs. Croesus (he thinks she's my friend,
because we call each other * dear' !) ; she is delight^
ed to be a fashionable woman, and to be described
as the * peerless and accomplished Mrs C-oe-s,' in
letters from the watering-places to the Herald ;
but I tell you, if anything of the woman or the
mother is left in the fashionable Mrs. Croesus, I'
could wring her heart as it never was wrung — ^and
never shall be by me — ^by showing her the places
that young Timon Croesus haunts, the people with
whom he associates, and the drunkenness, gambling,
and worse dissipations of which he is guilty.

" Timon Croesus is eighteen or nineteen, or, per-
haps, twenty years old ; and, Polly, I tell you, he
is actually blase, worn out with dissipation, the com-
panion of blacklegs, the chevalier of Cyprians, tipsy
every night, and haggard every morning. Timon
Croesus is the puny caricature of a man, mentally,
morally, physically. He gets ^elegantly intoxicated'
at your parties; he goes off to sup with Gauche

OUR NEW LIVERT, ETC 6S

Boosey ; you and Mrs. Croesus think them young
men of spirit — ^it is an exhilarating case of sowing
wild-oats, you fancy — and when, at twenty-five,
Timon Croesus stands ruined in the world, without
aims or capacities, without the esteem of a single
man or his own self-respect — youth, health, hope,
and energy, all gone for ever— then you and your
dear IJrs. Croesus will probably wonder at the horri-
ble harvest. Mrs. Potiphar, ask the Rev. Cream
Cheese to omit his sermon upon the maidenhood of
Lot's wife, and preach from this text : * They that
sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.' Good heav-
ens ! Polly, fancy our Fred, growing up to such a
life ! I'd rather bury him to-morrow !?'

I never saw Mr. P. so much excited. He fairly
put his handkerchief to his eyes, and I really be-
lieve he cried ! But I think he exaggerates these
things : and as he had a very dear friend who went
worse and worse, until he died frightfully a drunk-
ard, it is not strange he should speak so warmly
about it. But as Mrs. Croesus says :

" Wfcat can you do ? You can't curb these boys,
you don't want to break their spirits, you don't
want to make them milk-sops."

When I repeated the speech to Mr. P., he said to
me with a kind of solemnity :

" Tell Mrs. Croesus that I am not here to judge

64 THE POTIPHAE PAPEBS.

nor dictate: but she may be well assured, that
every parent is responsible for every child of his
to the utmost of the influence he can exert, whether
he chooses to consider himself so or not ; and if
not now, in this world, yet somewhere and some-
how, he must hear and heed the voice that called
to Cain in the garden, * Where is Abel, thy bro-
ther?'"

I can't bear to hear Mr. P. talk in that way 5 it
sounds so like preaching. Not precisely like what
I hear at church, but like what we mean when we
say " preaching," without referring to any particu-
lar sermon. However, he grants that young Timon
is an extreme case : but he says, it is the result that
proves the principle, and a state of feeling which,
not only allows, but indirectly fosters, that re-
sult, is frightful to think of.

" Don't think of it, then, Mr. P.," said I. He
looked at me for a moment with the sternest scowl
I ever saw upon a man's face, then he suddenly ran
up to me, and kissed me on the forehead (although my
hair was all dressed for Mrs. Gnu's dinner), anfL went
out of the house. He hasn't said much to me since,
but he speaks very gently when he does speak, and
sometimes I catch him looking at me in such a sin-
gular way, so half mournful, that Mr. Cheese's eyes
don't seem so very sad, after all.

OUR NEW LIVEEY, ETC. 65

However, to return to the party, I believe nothing
else was injured except the curtains in the front
drawing-room, which were so smeared with ice-
cream and oyster gravy, that we must get new ones ;
and the cover of my porcelain tureen was broken
by the servant, though the man said he really didn't
mean to do it, and I could say nothing ; and a party
of young men, after the German Cotillon, did^let
fall that superb cut-glass Claret, and shivered it,
with a dozen of the delicately-engraved atraw-stems
that stood upon the waiter. That was all, I be-
lieve — oh! except that fine '* Dresden Grallery," the
most splendid book I ever saw, full of engravings of
the great pictures in Dresden, Vienna, and the other
Italian towns, and which was sent to Mr. P. by an
old friend, an artist, whom he had helped along
when he was very poor. Somebody unfortunately
tipped over a bottle of claret that stood upon the
table, (I am sure, I don't know how it got there,
though Mr. P. says Gauche Boosey knows), and it
lay soaking into the book, so that almost every pic-
ture has a claret stain, which looks so funny. I am
very sorry, I am sure, but, as I tell Mr. P., it's no
use crying for spilt milk. I was telling Mr. Boosey
of it at the Gnus' dinner. He laughed very much,
and when I said that a good many of the faces were
sadly stained, he said iix his droll way, " You ought

56 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

to call it V opera di Bordeaux ; Le Domino rougeJ*^
I supposed it was something funny, so I laughed a
good deal. He said to me later :

" Shall I pour a little claret into your book — ^I
mean into your glass ?"

Wasn't it a pretty bon-mot ?

Don't you think we are getting very spirituel in
this^ountry ?

I believe there was nothing else injured except
the bed-hangings in the back-room, which were
somehow badly burnt and very much torn in pull-
ing down, and a few of our handsomest shades that
were cracked by the heat, and a few plates, which
it was hardly fair to expect wouldn't be broken,
and the colored glass door in my escritoire, against
which Flattie Podge fell as she was dancing with
Gauche Boosey ; but he may have been a little ex-
cited, you know, and she, poor girl, couldn't help
tumbling, and as her head hit the glass, of course it
broke, and cut her head badly, so that the blood ran
down and naturally jspoiled her dress ; and what
little escritoire could stand against Flattie Podge ?
So that went, and was a good deal smashed in fall-
ing. That's all, I think, except that the next day
Mrs. Croesus ^ent a note, saying that she had lost her
largest diamond from her necklace, and she was sure
that it was not in the carriage, nor in her own house,

OUR NEW LIVEET, ETC. 57

nor upon the sidewalk, for she had carefully looked
everywhere, and she would he very glad if I would
return it by the hearer.

Think of that!

Well, we hunted everywhere, and found no dia-
mond. I took particular pains to ask the servants
if they had found it ; for if they had, they might as
well give it up at once, without expecting any re-
ward from Mrs, Croesus, who wasn't very generous.
But they all said they hadn't found any diamond
and our man John, who you know is so guileless —
although it was a little mysterious about that emer-
ald pin of mine — ^brought me a bit of glass that had
been nicked out of my large custard dish, and asked
me if that was not Mrs. Croesus's diamond. I told
him no, and gave^ him a gold dollar for his
honesty. John is an invaluable servant; he is so
guileless.

Do you know I am not so *sure about Mrs. Croesus* s
diamond !

Mr. P. made a great growling about the ball.
But it was very foolish ; for he got safely to bed by
six o'clock, and he need have no trouble about re-
placing the curtains, and glass, etc. I shall do all
that, and the sum-total will be sent to him in a lump,
so that he can pay it.

Men are so unreasonable. Fancy us at seven

68 THE POTIPHAR PAPERS.

o'clock that morning, when I retired. He wasn't
asleep. But whose fault was that ?

" Polly," said he, " that's the last."
•"Last what?" said I.

*' Last ball at my house," said he.

" Fiddle-dee-dee," said I.

" I tell you, Mrs. Potiphar, I am not going to
open my house for a crowd of people who don't go
away till daylight ; who spoil my books and furni-
ture ; who involve me in a foolish expense ; for a
gang of rowdy boys, who drink my Margaux, and
Lafitte, and Marcobrunner, (what kind of drinks are
those, dear Caroline ?) and who don't know Cham-
bertin from liquorice-water— -for a swarm of per-
sons, few of whom know me, fewer still care for mef
and to whom I am only * Old Potiphar,' the hus-
band of you, a fashionable woman. I am simply
resolved to have no more such tomfoolery in my
house."

" Dear Mr. P.," said I, « you'll feel much better
when you have slept. Besides, why do you say
such things ? Mustn't we see our friends, I should
like to know ; and, if we do, are you going to let
your wife receive them in a manner inferior to old
Mrs. Podge or Mrs. Croesus ? People will accuse
you of meanness, and of treating me ill ; and if some
persons hear that you have reduced your style of

OUE NEW LIVERY, ETC. 59

living they will begin to suspect the state of your
aflkirs. Don't make any rash vows, Mr. P.," said I,
" but go to sleep."

(Do you know that speech was just what Mrs.
Croesus told me she had said to her husband under
similar circumstances ?)

Mr. P. fairly groaned, and I heard that short,
strong little word that sometimes inadvertently
drops out of the best regulated mouths, as young
Gooseberry Downe says when he swears before his
mother. Do you know Mrs. Settum Downe ?
Charming woman, but satirical.

Mr. P. groaned, and said some more jU-natured
things, until the clock struck nine, and he was
obliged to get up. I should be sorry to say to, any-
body but you, dearest, that I was rather glad of it ;
for I could then fall asleep at my ease ; and these
little connubial felicities (I think they call them) are
so tiresome. But everybody agreed it was a beau-
tiful ball ; and I had the great gratification of hear-
ing young Lord Mount Ague (you know you danced
with him, love) say that it was quite the same thing
as a ball at Buckingham Palace, except, of course,
in size, and the number of persons, and dresses, and
jewels, and the plate, and glass, and supper, and
wines, and furnishing of the rooms, and lights, and
some of those things, which are naturally upon a

60 THE FOTIPHAB PAFEBS.

larger scale at a palace than in a private house*
But, he said, excepting sach things, it was quite as
fine. I am afraid Lord Mount Ague flatters ; just a
little bit, you know.

Yes ; and there was young Major Staggers, who
said that ** Decidedly it was iAc party of the season*''

" How odd," said Mrs. Crcesus, to whom I told it,
and, I confess, with a little pride. ** What a sym-
pathetic man : that is, for a military man, I mean-
Would you believe, dear Mrs. Potiphar, that he said
precisely the same thing to me two days after my
ball?"

Now, Caroline, dearest, perhaps he did !

With all these pleasant things said about one's
party, I cannot see that it is such a dismal thing as
Mr. P. tries to make out. After one of his solemn
talks, I asked Mr. Cheese what he thought of balls,
whether it was so very wicked to dance, and go to
parties, if one only went to church twice a day on
Sundays. He patted his lips a moment with his
handkerchief, and then he said — and, Caroline, you
can always quote the Rev. Cream Cheese as au-
thority —

" Dear Mrs. Potiphar, it is recorded in Holy
Scripture that the King danced before the Lord."

Darling, jf anything should happen^ I don't believe
he would object much to your dancing.

OUR NEW LIVERT, ETC. 61

What gossips we women are, to be sure! I
meant to write you about our new livery, and I am
afraid I have tired you out already. You remember
when you were here, I said that I meant to have
a livery ; for my sister Margaret told me that when
they used to drive in Hyde Park, with the old Mar-
quis of Mammon, it was always so delightful to hear
him say,

" Ah! there is Lady Lobster's livery." .

It was so aristocratic. And in countries where
certain colors distinguish certain families, and are
hereditary, so to say, it is convenient and pleasant
to recognize a coat-of-arms, or a livery, and to know
that the representative of a great and famous family
is passing by.

*^ That's a Howard, that's a Russell, that's a
Dorset, that's de Colique, that's Momnt Ague," old
Lord Mammon used to say as the carriages whirled
by. He knew none of them personally, I believe,
except de Colique and Mount Ague, but then it was
so agreeable to be able to know their liveries.

Now, why shouldn't we have the same arrange-
ment? Why not have the Smith colors, and the
Brown colors, and the Black colors, and the Poti-
phar colors, etc., so that the people might say,
" Ah ! there go the Potiphar arms."

There is one difficulty, Mr. P. says, and that is,

02 THE POTIPHAE PAPERS.

that he found five hundred and sixty-seven Smiths
in the Directory, which might lead to some con
fusion. But that was absurd, as I told him, be
cause everybody would know which of the Smiths
was able to keep a carriage, so that the livery
would be recognized directly the moment that any
of the family were seen in the carriage. Upon
which he said, in his provoking way, " Why have
any livery at all, then?" and he persisted in saying
that no Smith was ever the Smith for three generations,
and that he knew at least twenty, each of whom was
able to set up his carriage and stand by his colors.

" But then a livery is so elegant and aristocratic,"
said I, "and it shows that a servant is a servant."

That last was a strong argument, and I thought
Mr. P. would have nothing to say against it ; but
he rattled on f#r some time, asking me what right
I had to be aristocratic, or, in fact, anybody else ;
went over his eternal old talk about aping foreign
habits, as if we hadn't a right to adopt the good
usages of all nations, and finally said that the use
of liveries among us was not only a " pure peacock
absurdity," as he called it, but that no genuine
American would ever ask another to assume a
menial badge.

"Why?" said I, "is not an American servant a
servant still ?"

OUB NEW LIVERY, ETQ. 63

" Most undoubtedly," he said ; ** and when a man
is a servant, let him serve faithfully; and in this
country especially, where to-morrow he may be
the served, and not the servant, let him not be
ashamed of serving. But Mrs. Potiphar, I beg you
to observe that a servant's livery is not, like a gene-
ral's uniform, the badge of honorable service, but
of menial service. Of course, a servant may be as
honorable as a general, and his work quite as neces-
sary and well done. But, for all that, it is not so
respected nor coveted a situation, I believe; and, in
social estimation, a man suffers by wearing a livery,
as he never would if he wore none. And while in
countries in which a man is proud of being a servant
(as every man may well be of being a good one),
and never looks to anything else, nor desires any
change, a livery may be very proper to the state of
society, and very agreeable to his own feelings, it is
quite another thing in a society constituted upon
altogether different principles, where the servant of
to-day is the senator of to-morrow. Besides that,
which I suppose is too fine-spun for you, livery is a
remnant of a feudal state, of .which we abolish every
trace as fast as we can. That which is represented
by livery is not consonant with our principles."

How the man runs on, when he gets going this
way ! I said, in answer to all this flourish, that I

64 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

considered a livery very much the thing ; that Eu-
ropean families had liveries, and American families
might have liveries ; that there was an end of it,
and I meant to have one. Besides, if it is a matter
of family, I should like to know who has a better
ight ? There was Mr. Potiphar's grandfather, to be
sure, was only a skillful blacksmith and a good
citizen, as Mr. P. says, who brought up a family in
the fear of the Lord.

How oddly he puts those things !

But my ancestors, as you know, are a. different
matter. Starr Mole, who interests himself in gene-
alogies, and knows the family name and crest of all
the English nobility, has " climbed our family tree,"
as Staggers says, and finds that I am lineally descend-
ed from one of those two brothers who came over
in some of those old times, in some of those old
ships, and settled in some of those old places some-
where. So you see, dear Caroline, if birth give
any one a right to coats of arms and liveries, and all
those things, I feel myself sufficiently entitled to
have them.

But I don't care anything about that. The Gnus,
and Croesuses, and Silkes, and the Settum Downes
have their coats of arms, and crests, and liveries, and
I am not going to be behind, I tell you. Mr. P.
ought to remember that a great many of these fami-

OUE NEW LIVEET. ETC. 65

lies were famous before they came to this country,
and there is a kind of interest in having on your
ring, for instance, the same crest that your ancestor
two or three centuries ago had upon her ring. One
day I was quite wrought up about the matter, and
I said as much to him.

" Certainly," said he, " certainly ; you are quite
right. If I had Sir Philip Sidney to my ancestor, I
should wear his crest upon my ring, and glory in my
relationship, and I hope I should be a better man
for it. I wouldn't put his arms upon my carriage,
however, because that would mean nothing but
ostentation. It would be merely a flourish of trum-
pets to say that I was his descendant, and nobody
would know that, either, if my name chanced to be
Boggs. In my library I might hang a copy of the
family escutcheon as a matter of interest and .curi-
osity to myself, for I'm sure I shouldn't understand
it. Do you suppose Mrs. Gnu knows what gvles
argent are ? A man may be as proud of his family
as he chooses, and, if he have noble ancestors, with
good reason. But there is no sense in parading that
pride. It is an affectation, the more foolish that it
achieves nothing — ^no more credit at Stewart's — no
more real respect in society. Besides, Polly, who
were Mrs. Gnu's ancestors, or Mrs. Croesus's, or
Mrs. Settum Downe's ? Good, quiet, honest, and

66 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

humble people, who did their work, and rest from
their labor. Centuries ago, in England, some drops
of blood from * noble' veins may have mingled with
the blood of their forefathers ; or even, the founder
of the family name may be historically famous.
What then ? Is Mrs. (Jnu's family ostentation less
absurd ? Do you understand the meaning of her
crest, and coats of arms, and liveries? Do you
suppose she does herself? But in forty-nine cases
out of fifty, there is nothing but a similarity of name
upon which to found all this flourish of aristocracy."

My dear old Pot is getting rather prosy, Carrie.
So, when he had finished that long speech, during
which I was looking at the lovely fashion-plates in
Harper, I said :

" What colors do you think I'd better have ?"

He looked at me with that singular expression,
and went out suddenly, as if he were afraid he might
say something.

He had scarcely gone before I heard :

" My dear Mrs. Potiphar, the sight of you is re-
freshing as Hermon's dew."

I colored a little ; Mr. Cheese says such things so
soflly. But I said good morning, and then asked
him about liveries, etc.

He raised his hand to his cravat (it was the most
snowy la\?vn, Carrie, and tied in a splendid bow).

OUR NEW LIVERY, ETC. 67

**Is not this a livery, dear Mrs. Potiphar ?"

And then he went off into one of those pretty
talks, in what Mr. P. calls "the language of artifi-
cial flowers," and wound up by quoting Scripture —
'* Servants, obey yoiy masters."

That was enough for me. So I told Mr. Cheese
that, as he had already assisted me in colors once,
I should be most glad to have him do so again.
What a time we had, to be sure, talking of colors,
and cloths, and gaiters, and buttons, and knee-
breeches, and waistcoats, and plush, and coats, and
lace, and hatbands, and gloves, and cravats, and
cords, and tassels, and hats. Oh ! it was delightful.
You can't fancy how heartily the Eev. Cream entered
into the matter. He was quite enthusiastic, and at
last he said, with so much expriession, " Dear Mrs.
Potiphar, why not have a chasseur ?"

I thought it was some kind of French dish for
lunch, so I said : /-

" I am so sorry, but we haven't any in the house."

" Oh," said he, " but you could hire one, you
know."

Then I thought it must be a musical instrument
— a panharmonicon, or something of that kind, so I
said in a general way —

" I'm not very, very fond of it."

" But it would be so fine to have him standing

68 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

on the back of the carriage, his plumes waving in
the wind, and his lace and polished belts flashing in
the sun, as you whirled down Broadway."

Of course I knew then that he was speaking of
those military gentlemen who ride behind carriages,
especially upon the continent, as Margaret tells me,
and who, in Paris, are very useful to keep the sav-
ages and wild-beasts at bay in the Champs Elyseesy
for you know they are intended as a guard.

But I knew Mr.' P. would be firm about that, so
I asked Mr. Cheese not to kindle my imagination
with the chasseur.

We concluded finally to have only one full-sized
footman, and a fat driver.

" The corpulence is essential, dear Mrs. Potiphar,"
said Mr. Cheese. "I have been much abroad ; I
have mingled, I trust, in good, which is to say.
Christian society : and I must say, that few things
struck me more upon my return than that the
ladies who drive very handsome carriages, with
footmen, etc., in livery, should permit such thin
coachmen upon the box. I really believe that Mrs.
Settum Downe's coachman doesn't weigh more
than a hundred and thirty pounds, which is ridicu-
lous. A lady might as well hire a footman with
insufficient calves, as a coachman who weighs less
than two hundred and ten. That is the minimum.

OUE NEW LIVERY, ETC. 69

Besides, I don't observe any wigs upon the coach-
men. Now, if a lady set up her carriage with the
family crest and fine liveries, why, I should like to
know, is the wig of the coachman omitted, and his
cocked hat also? It is a kind of shabby, half-
ashamed way of doing things — a garbled glory.
The cock-hatted, knee-breeched, paste-buckled,
horse-hair-wigged coachman, is one of the institu-
tions of the aristocracy. If we don't have him com-
plete, we somehow make ourselves ridiculous. If
we do have him complete, why, then?"-T-

Here Mr. Cheese coughed a little, and patted his
mouth with his cambric. But what he said was
very true. I shcndd like to come out with the wig,
I mean upon the coachman ; it would so put down
the Settum Downes. But I'm sure old Pot wouldn't
have it. He lets me do a great deal. But there is a
line which I feel he won't let me pass. I mentioned
my fears to Mr. Cheese.

"Well," he said, "Mr. Potiphar may be right.
I remember an expression of my carnal days about
* coming it too strong,' which seems to me to be
applicable just here."

After a little more talk, I determined to have red
plush breeches, with a black cord at the side — white
stockings — ^low shoes, with large buckles — a yellow *
waistcoat, with large buttons — lappels to the pock-

70 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

ets — ^and a purple coat, very full and fine, bound
with gold lace — and the hat banded with a full gold
rosette. Don't you think that would look well in
Hyde Park? And, darling Carrie, why shouldn't
we have in Broadway what they have in Hyde
Park?

When Mr. P. came in, I told him all about it.
He laughed a good deal, and said, " What next ?"
So I am not sure he would, be so very hard upon
the wig. The next morning I had appointed to see
the new footman, and, as Mr. P. went out he turned
and said to me, " Is your footman coming to-da.y ?"

" Yes," I answered.

" Well," said he, " don't forget the calves. You
know that everything in the matter of livery de-
pends upon the calves."

And he went out laughing silently to himself,
with — actually, Carrie — a tear in his eye-

But it- was true, wasn't it? I remember in all
the books and pictures how much is said about the
calves. In advertisements, etc., it is stated that
none but well-developed calves need apply ; at least
it is so in England, and, if I have a livery, I am not
going to stop half-way. My duty was very clear.
When Mr. Cheese came in, I said I felt awkward in
asking a servant about his calves, it sounded so
queerly. But I confessed that it was necessary.

OUR NEW LIVERY, ETC. 71

" Yes, the path of duty is not always smooth,
dear Mrs. Potiphar. It is often thickly strewn
with thorns," said he, as he sank back in the
fauteuiU and put down his yetit verre of Maras-
quin.

Just after he had gone, the new footman was an-
nounced. I assure you, although it is ridiculous, I
felt quite nervous. But when he came in, I said
calmly:

"Well, James, I am glad you have come."

"Please ma'am, my name is Henry," said he.

I was astonished at his taking me up so, and said
decidedly :

"James, the. name of my footman is always
James. You may call yourself what you please, I
shall always call you James."

The idea of the man's undertaking to arrange my
servants' names for me !

Well, he showed me his references, which wen
very good, and I was quite satisfied. But there
was the terrible calf business that must be attend-
ed to. I^put it off a great while, bu* I had to
begin.

" Well, James !" and there I stopped.

"Yes, ma'am," said he.

" I wish — ^yes — ah !" and there I stopped again.

"Yes, ma'am," said he.

72 THE POTIPHAR PAPEBS.

" James, I wish you had come in knee-breeches.**

"Ma'am?" said he, in great surprise.

" In knee-breeches, James," repeated I.

"What be they, ma'am? What for ma'am?"
said he, a little frightened, as I thought.

" Oh ! nothing, nothing ; but — but — "

" Yes, ma'am," said James.
* But — but I want to see — ^to see—"

" What, ma'am ?" said James.

" Your legs," gasped I ; and the path vxis thorny
enough. Carry, I can tell you. I had a terrible
time explaining to him what I meant, and all about
the liveries, etc. Dear me^! what a pity these
things are not understood ; and then we should never
have this trouble about explanations. However, I
couldn't make him agree to wear the livery. He said :

" I'll try to be a good servant, ma'am, but I cannot
put on those things and make a fool of myself. I hope
you won't insist, for I am very anxious to get a place."

Think of his dictating to me ! I told him that I
did not permit my servants to impose conditions
upon me (that's one of Mrs. Croesus's sayings), that
I was williqg to pay him good wages and treat him
. well, but that my James must wear my livery. He
looked very sorry, said that he should like the place
very much — that he was satisfied with the wages,
and was sure he should please me, bul; he could not

OUR NEW LIVERY, ETC. 73

put on those things. We were both detiBrmined,
and so parted. I think we were both sorry ; for I
should have to go all through the calf-business
again, and he lost a good place.

However, Caroline, dear, I have my livery and
my footman, and am as good as anybody. It's
very splendid when I go to Stewart's to have the red
plush, and the purple, and the white calves spring-
ing down to open the door, and to see people look,
and say, "I wonder who that is?" And everybody
bows so nicely, and the clerks are so polite, and
Mrs. Gnu is melting with envy on the other side,
and Mrs. Croesus goes about, saying : " Dear little
woman, that Mrs. Potiphtir, but so weak! Pity,
pity!" And Mrs. Settum Downe says: "Is that
the Potiphar livery? Ah, yes! Mr. Potiphar's
grandfather used to shoe my grandfather's horses!"
(as if to be useful in the world were a disgrace — as
Mr. P. says,) and young Downe, and Boosey, and
TimoQ Croesus, come up and stand about so gentle^
manly, and say : " Well, Mrs. Potiphar, are we to
have no more charming parties this season?" and
Boosey says, in his droll way : "Let's keep the ball
a-rolling !" That young man is always ready with
a witticism. Then I step out, and James throws
open the door, and the young men raise their hats,
and the new crowd says : " I wonder who that is !"

74 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

and the plush, and purple, and calves spring up be-
hind, and I drive home to dinner.

Now, Carrie, dear, isn't that nice ?

Well, I don't know how it is — ^but things are so
queer. Sometimes when I wake up in the morn-
ing, in my room, which I have had tapestried with
fluted rose silk, and lie thinking, under the lace
curtains ; although I may have been at one of Mrs
Gnu's splendid parties the night before, and am
going to Mrs. Silke's to dinner, and to the opera and
Mrs. Settum Downe's in the evening, and have
nothing to do all day but go to Stewart's, or Mar-
telle's, or Lefevre's, and shop, and pay morning
calls ; — do you know, m I say, that sometimes I
hear an old familiar tune played upon a hand-organ
far away in some street, and it seems to me in that
half drowsy state under the laces, that I hear the
girls and boys singing it in the fields where we used
to play. It is a kind of dream, I suppose, but
often, as I listen, I am sure that I hear Henry's
voice again that used to ring so gayly among the old
trees, and I walk with him in the sunlight to the
bank by the river, and he throws in the flower — as
he really did — and says with a laugh, " If it goes
this side of the stump I am saved ; if the other, I
am lost ;" and then he looks at me as if I had any-
thing to de with it, and the flower drifts slowly off

OUR NEW LIVERY, ETC. 76

and off, and goes the other side of the old stump,
and we walk homeward silently, until Henry laughs
out, and says, "Thank heaven, my fate is not a
flower ;" and I swear to love him for ever and ever,
and marry him, and live in a dingy little old room
in some of the dark and dirty streets in the city.

Then I doze again : but presently the music
steals into my sleep, and I see him as I saw him last,
standing in his pulpit, so calm and noble, and draw-
ing the strong men as well as the weak women by
his earnest persuasion ; and after service he smiles
upon me kindly, and says, " This is my wife," and
the wife, who looks like the Madonna in that picture
of Andrea Del Sarto's, wliich you liked so at the
gallery, leads us to a little house buried in roses,
looking upon a broad and lovely landscape, and
Henry whispers to me as a beautiful boy bounds into,
the room, " Mrs. Potiphar, I am very happy."

I doze again until Adele comes in and opens the
shutters. I do not hear the music any more ; but
those days I do somehow seem to hear it all the
time. Of course Mr. P. is gone long before I wake,
so he knows nothing about all this. I generally
come in at night after he is asleep, and he is up and
has his breakfast, and goes down town before I wake
in the morning. He comes home to dinner, but he
is apt to be silent ; and after dinner he takes his

76 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

nap in the parlor over his newspaper, while I go up
and let Adele dress my hair for the evening. Some-
times Mr. P. groans into a clean shirt and goes with
me to the ball ; but not often. When I come
home, as I said, he is asleep^- so I don't see a great
deal of him, except in the summer, when I am at
Saratoga or Newport ; and then, notso much, after all,
for he usually only comes to pass Sunday, and I must
be a good Christian, you know, and go to church.
On the. whole, we have not a very intimate ac-
quaintance ; but I have a great respect for him. He
told me the other day that he should make at least
thirty thousand dollars this year.

My darling Carrie — ^I am very sorry I can't write
you a longer letter. I want to consult you about
wearing gold powder, like the new Empress. It
would kill Mrs. Croesus if you and I should be the
first to come out in it; and don't you think the
effect would be fine, wheft we were dancing, to
shower the gold mist around us ! How it would
sparkle upon the gentlemen's black coats ! ('' Yes,"
says Mr. P., " and how finely Gauche Boosey, and
Timon Croesus, and young Downe will look in silk
tights and small-clothes !") They say its genuine
gold ground up. I have already sent for a white
velvet and lace — ^the Empress's bridal dress, you
know. That foolish old P. asked me if I had

UR KEW LIVERT, ETC. 77

sent for the Emperor and the Bank of France,
too.

" Men ask such absurd questions," said I.

" Mrs. Potiphar, I never asked but one utterly-
absurd question in my life," said he, and marched
out of the house.

Au revoirf chere Caroline. I have a thousand
things to say, but I know you must be tired to
death.

Fondly yours,

Polly Potiphar.

P. S. — Our little Fred, is quite down with the
scarlet fever. Potiphar says I mustn't expose my-
self, so I don't go into the room ; but Mrs. JoUup,
the nurse, tells me through the keyhole how he is.
Mr. P. sleeps in the room next the nursery, so as
not to carry the infection to me. He looks very
solemn as he walks down town. I hope it won't
spoil Fred.'s complexion. I should be so sorry to
have him a little fright ! Poor little thing !

P. S. 2d. — ^Isn't it funny about the music ?

III.

A MEDITATION BY PAUL POTIPHAR, ESQ.

A MEDITATION BY PAUL POTIPHAR, ESQ.

Well, my new house is finished — and so am I.
I hope Mrs. Potiphar is satisfied. Everybody agrees
that it is '* palatial." The daily papers have had
columns of description, and I am, evidently, accord-
ing to their authority, " munificent," " tasteful,"
** enterprising," and " patriotic."

Amen \ but what business have I with palatial
residences ? What more can I possibly want, than
a spacious, comfbrtable house ? Do J want buhl
escritoires ? Do I want or molu things ? Do I know
anything about pictures and statues ? In the name
of heaven, do I want rose-pink bed-curtains to give
my grizzly old phiz a delicate " auroral hue," as
Cream Cheese says of Mrs. P.'s complexion ? Be-
cause I have made fifty thousand this last year in
Timbuctoo bonds, must I convert it all into a
house, so large that it will not hold me comforta-
bly — so splendid that I might as well live in a por-
celain vase, for the trouble of taking care of it —
4»

82 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

SO prodigiously "palatial" that I have to skulk into
my private room, put on my slippers, close the
door, shut myself up with myself, and wpnder why
1 married Mrs. Potiphar ?

This house is her doing. Before I married her, I
would have worn yellow silk breeches on 'Change
if she had commanded me — ^for love. Now I would
build her two houses twice as large as this, if she
required it — for peace. It's all over. When I
came home from China I was the desirable Mr.
Potiphar^ and every evening was a field-day for me,
in which I reviewed all the matrimonial forces.
It is astonishing, now I come to think of it, how
skillfully Brigadier-Greneral Mrs. Pettitoes deployed
those daughters df hers ; how vigorously Mrs.
Tabby led on her forlorn hope ; and how unwea-
riedly, Murat-like, Mrs. De Famille charged at the
head of her cavalry. They deserve to be made
Marshals of France, all of them. And I am sure,
that if women ought ever to receive honorary tes-
timonials, it is for having '< married a daughter
well.'^

That's a pretty phrase ! The mammas marry,
the misses are married.

And yet, L don't see why I say so. I fear I am
getting sour. For certainly, Polly's mother didn't
marry Polly to me. I fell in love with her ; the

A MEDITATION, ETC. 83

rest followed. Old Gnu says that it's true Polly's
mother didn't marry her, but she did marry her-
self, to me.

" Do you really think, Paul Potiphar," said he, a
few months ago, when I was troubled about Polly's
getting a livery, " that your wife was in love with
you, a dry old chip from China ? Don't you^hear
her say, whenever any of her friends are engaged,
that they * have done very well !' and maoe a * capi-
tal match !' and have you any doubt of her mean-
ing? Don't you know that this is the only country
in which the word * money' must never be named in
the young female ear ; and in whose best society —
not universally nor without exception, of course
not; Paul, don't be a fool — money makes mar-
riages ? When you were engaged, * the world' said
that it was a 'capital thing' for Polly. Did that
mean that you were a good, generous, intelligent,
friendly, and patient man, who would be the com-
panion for life she ought to have ? You know, as
well as I do, and as all the people who said it know,
that it meant you were worth a few hundred t^u-
sands ; that you could build a splendid house, keep
horses and chariots, and live in style. You and I
are sensible men, Paul, and we take the world as
we find it ; %nd know that if a man wants a good
dinner he must pay for it. We don't quarrel with

84 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS. ;

this state of things. How can it be helped ? But
we need not virtuously pretend it's something else.
When my wife, being then a gay girl, first smiled
at me, and looked at me, and smelt at the flowers
I sent her in an unutterable manner, and proved to
me that she didn't love me by the efforts she made
to sjjpw that she did, why, I was foolishly smitten
with her^ and married her. I knew that she did
not marry me, but sundry shares in the Patagonia
and Nova Zembla Consolidation, and a few hundred
house-lots upon the island. What then ? I wanted
her, she was willing to take me* — being sensible
enough to know that the stock and the lots had an
encumbrance. Voild ma, as young Boosey says.
Your wife wants you to build a house. You'd
better build it. It's the easiest way. Make tip
your mind to Mrs. Potiphar, my dear Paul, and
thank heaven you've no daughters to be married
off by that estimable woman."

Why does a man build a house ? To live in, I
suppose — to have a hom^. But is a fine house a
hope ? I mean, is a ^^ palatial residence," with
Mrs. Potiphar at the head of it, the "home" of
which we all dream more or less, and for which we
ardently long as we grow older? A house, I take
it, is a retreat to which a man hurries l^m business,
and in which he is compensated by the tenderness

A MEDITATION, ETC. 85

and thoughtful regard of a woman, and the play of
his children, for the rough rubs with men. I know
it is a silljfe view of the case, but I'm getting old and
can't help it. Mrs. Potiphar is perfectly right when
she says :

" You men are intolerable. After attending to your
own affairs all day, and being free from the fuss of
housekeeping, you expect to come home and shuffle
into your slippers, and snooze over the evening
paper — ^if it were possible to snooze over the excit-
ing and respectable evening journal you take —
while we are to sew, and talk with you if you are
talkative, and darn the stockings, and make tea.
You come home tired, and, likely enough, surly,
and gloom about like a thunder-cloud if dinner isn't
ready for you the instant you are ready for it, and
then sit mum and eat it ; and snap at the children,
and show yourselves the selfish igly things you
are. Am I to have no fun, never go to the opera,
never go to a ball, never have a party at home ?
Men are tyrants, Mr. Potiphar. They are ogres
who entice us poor girls into their castles, and then
eat up our happiness, and scold us while they eat."

Well, I suppose it is so. I suppose I am an ogre
and enticed Polly into my castle. But she didn't
find it large enough, and teased me to build another.
I suppose she does sit with me in the evening, and

86 THE POTIPHAR PAPEES.

sew, and make tea, and wait upon me. I suppose
she does, but I've not a clear idea of it. I know it
is unkind of me, when I have been hard at work all
day, trying to make and secure the money that
gives her and her family everything they want, and
which wearies me body and soul, to expect her to
let me stay at home, and, be quiet. I know I ought
to press and go into Gnu's house, and smirk at his
wife, and stand up in a black suit before him attired
in the same way, and talk about the same stocks
that we discussed down town in the morning in
colored trowsers. That's a social duty, I suppose.
And I ought to see various slight young gentlemen
whirl my wife around the room, and hear them tell
her when they stop, that it's very warm. That's
another social duty, I suppose. And I must smile
when the same young gentlemen put their elbows
into my stomach, and hop on my feet in order to
extend the circle of the dance. I'm sure Mrs. P. is
right. She does very right to ask, " Have we no
social duties, I should like to know ?"

And when we have performed these social duties
in Gnu's house, how mean it is, how " it looks,"
not to build a larger house for him and Mrs. Gnu
to come and perform their social duties in. I give
it up. There^s no doubt of it.

One day Polly said to me :

A MEDITATION, ETC. 87

"Mr. Potiphar, we're getting down town."

" What do you mean, my dear ?"

" Why, everybody is building above us, and there
are actually shops in the next street. Singe, the
pastry-cook, has hired Mrs. Croesus's old house."

" I know it. Old Croesus told me so some time ago ;
and he said how sorry he was to go. * Why, Poti-
phar,' said he, * I really hoped when I built there,
that I should stay, and not go out of the house,
finally, until I went into no other. I have lived
there long enough to love the place, and have some
associations with it ; and my family have grown up
in it, and love the old house, too. It was our home.
When any of us said * home,' we meant not the
family only, but the house in which the family
lived, where the children were all born, and where
two have died, and my old mother, too. I'm in a
new house now, and have lost my reckoning entirely.
I don't know the house ; I've no associations with it.
The house is new, the furniture is new, and my
feelings are new. It's a farce for me to begin again,
in this way. But my wife says it's all right, that
everybody does it and wants to know how it can be
helped ; and, as I don't want to argue the matter, I
look amen.' That's the way Mr. Croesus submits
to his new house, Mrs. Potiphar."

She doesn't understand it. Poor child! how

88 THE POTIPHAK PAPEBS.

should she ? She, and Mrs. Croesus, and Mrs* Gnu
and even Mrs. Settum Downe, are all as nomsidie as
Bedoueen Arabs. The Rev. Cream Cheese says,
that he sees in this constant n;iigration from one
house to another, a striking resemblance to the
"tents of a night," spoken of in Scripture. He
imparts this religious consolation to nie when I
grumble. He says, that it prevents a too-closely
clinging affection to temporary abodes. One day,
at. dinner, that audacious wag, Boosey, asked him
if the " many manthuns" mentioned in the Bible,
were not as true of mortal as of immortal life. Mrs.
Potiphar grew purple, and Mr. Cheese looked at
Boosey in the most serious manner over the top of
his champagne-glass. I am glad to say that Polly
has properly rebuked Grauche Boosey for his irre-
ligion, by not asking him to her Saturday evening
matinees dansantes.

There was no escape from the house, however.
It must be built. It was not only Mrs. Potiphar
that persisted, but the spirit of the age and of the
country. One can't live among shops. When
Pearl street comes to Park Place, Park Place must
run for its life up to Thirtieth street. I know it
can't be helped, but I protested, and I will protest.
If I've got to go, I'll have my grumble. My wife
says :

A MEDITATION, ETC 89

. " Tm ashamed of you , Potipbar, Do you pretend
to be an American, and not give way willingly to the
march of improvement ? You had better talk with
Mr, Cream Cheese upon the * genius of the country.'
You are really unpatriotic, you show nothing of the
enterprising spirit of your time." " Yes," I answer.
" That's pretty from you ; you are patriotic, aren't
you, with your liveries and illimitable expenses, and
your low bows to money, and your immense inti-
macy with all lords and ladies that honor the city
by visiting it. You are prodigiously patriotic
with your inane imitations of- a splendor impos-
sible to you in the nature of things. You are
the ideal American woman, aren't you, Mrs. Poti
phar?"

Then I run, for I'm afraid of myself, as much as
of her. I am sick of this universal plea of patriot-
ism. It is used to excuse all the follies that out-
rage it. I am not patriotic if I don't do this and
that, which, if done, is a ludicrous caricature of
something foreign. I am not up to the time if I
persist in having my own comfort in my own way.
I try to resist the irresistible march of improvement,
if I decline to build a great house, which, when it
is built, is a puny copy of a bad model. I am very
unpatriotic if I am not trying to outspend foreign
noblemen, and if I don't affect, without education.

90 THE POTIPHAR PAPERS.

or taste, or habit, what is only beautiful when it is
the result of the three.

However, this is merely my grumble. I knew,
the first morning Mrs. Potiphar spoke of a new
house, that I must build it. What she said was per-
fectly true ; we were getting down town, there was
no doubt of the growing inconvenience of our situa-
tion. It was becoming a dusty, noisy region. The
congregation of the Rev. Far Niente had sold their
church and moved up town. Now doesn't it really
seem as if we were a cross between the Arabs who
dwell in tents and those who live in cities, for we
are migratory in the city ? A directory is a more
imperative annual necessity here than in any other
civilized region. My wife says it is a constant plea-
sure to her to go round and see the new houses and
the new furniture of her new fnends, every year.
I saw that I must submit. But I determined to
make little occasional stands against it. So one day
I said:

" Polly, do you know that the wives of all the
noblemen who will be your very dear and intimate
friends and models when you go abroad, always live
in the same houses in London, and Paris, and Rome,
and Vienna ? Do you know that Northumberland
House is so called because it is the hereditary town-
mansion of the Duke, and that the son and daiigh-

A MEDITATION, ETC. 91

ter-in-law of Lord Londonderry will live after him
in the house where his father and mother lived be-
fore him? Did that ever occur to you, my dear? "

" Mr. Potiphar," she replied, " do you mean to go
by the example of foreign noblemen? I thought you
always laughed at me for what you call * aping.' "

So I do, and so I will continue to do, Mrs. Poti-
phar; only I thought that, perhaps, you would
like to know the fact, because it might make you
more lenient to me when I regretted leaving our
old house here. It has an aristocratic precedent."

Poor, dear little Mrs- P. ! It didn't take as I
meant it should, and I said no more. Yet it does
seem to me a pity that we lose all the interest and
advantage of a homestead. The house and its fur-
niture become endeared by long residence, and by
their mute share in all the chances of our life.
The chair in which some dear old friend so often
sat — father and mother, perhaps — and in which
they shall sit no more; the old-fashioned table,
with the cuts and scratches that generations of
children have made upon it ; the old book-cases ;
the heavy side-board ; the glass, from which such
bumpers sparkled for those who are hopelessly
scattered now, or forever gone ; the doors they
opened; the walls that echoed their long-hushed
laughter — are we wise when we part with them

93 THE POTIPHAB PAPEBS.

all, or, when compelled to do so, to leave them
eagerly?

I remember my brother James used to say :

" What is our envy for our country friends, but
that their homes are permanent and characteristic ?
Their children's children may play in. the same gar-
den. Each annual festival may summon them to
the old hearth. In the meeting-house they sit in
the wooden pews where long ago they sat and
dreamed of Jerusalem ; and now as they sit there,
that long ago is fairer than the holy city. Through
the open window they see- the grass waving softly
in the summer air, over old graves dearer to them
than many new houses. By a thousand tangible
and visible associations they are still, with a pecu-
liar sense of actuality, near to all they love."

Polly would call it a sentimental whim — ^if she
could take Mrs. Croesus's advice before she spoke
of it — ^but what then ? When I was fifteen, I fell
desperately in love with Lucy Lamb. " Pooh,
pooh," said my father, " you are romantic, it's all
a whim of yours."

And he succeeded in breaking it up. I went to
China, and Lucy married old Firkin, and lived in a
splendid house, and now lies in a splendid tomb of
Cai*rara marble, exquisitely sculptured.

When I was forty, I came home from China, and

A MEDITATION, ETC. 93

the old gentleman said, "I want you to marry
Arabella Bobbs, the heiress. It will be a good
match."

I said to him.

" Pooh, pooh, my dear father, you are mercenary ;
it's all a whim of yours."

" My dear son, I know it," said he, " the whole
thing is whim. You can live on a hundred dol-
lars a year, if you choose. But you have the whim
of a good dinner, of a statue, of a book. Why not ?
Only be careful in following your whims, that they
really come to something. Have as many whims as
you please, but don't follow them all."

" Certainly not,'? said I ; and fell in love with the
present Mrs. Potiphar, and married her, off-hand.
So, if she calls this genuine influence of association
a mere whim — ^let it go at that. She is a whim,
too. My mistake simply was in not following out
the romantic whim, and marrying Lucy Lamb. At
least it seems to me so, this morning. In fact, sit-
ting in my very new "palatial residence," the
whole business of life seems to me rather whim-
sical".

For here I am, come into port at last. No longer
young — ^but worth a good fortune — ^master of a
great house — -respected down town — ^husband of
Mrs. Potiphar-^-«nd father of Master Frederic ditto.

94 THE POTIPHAE PAPEBS.

Per contra ; I shall never be in love again — ^in get
ting my fortune I have lost my real life — my house
is dreary — ^Mrs. Potiphar is not Lucy Lamb — ^and
Master Frederic — ^is a good boy.

The game is all up for me, and yet I trust I have
good feeling enough left to sympathize with those
who are still playing. I see girls as lovely and
dear as any of which poets have sung — as fresh as
dew-drops, and beautiful as morning. I watch
their glances, and understand them better than they
know — ^for they do not dream that " old Potiphar"
does anything more than pay Mrs. P.'s bills. I see
the youths nervous about neckcloths, and anxious
that their hair shall be parted straight behind. I
see them all wear the same tie, the same trowsers,
the same boots. I hear them all say the same
thing, and dance with the same partners in the
same way. I see them go to Europe and return —
I hear them talk slang to show that they have ex-
hausted human life in foreign parts, and observe
them demean themselves according to their idea
of the English nobleman. I watch them go in
strongly for being " manly," and " smashing the
spoonies" — asserting intimacies with certain uncer-
tain women in Paris, and proving it by their treat-
ment of ladies at home. I see them fuddle them-
selves on fine wines and talk like cooks, play

A MEDITATION, ETC. 95

heavily and lose, and win, and pay, and drink, and
maintain a conservative position in politics, de-
nouncing " Uncle Tom's Cabin," as a false and
fanatical tract ; and declaring that oar peculiar in-
stitutions are our own affair, and that John Bull had
better keep his eyes at home to look into his coal
mines. I see this vigorous fermentation subside,
and much clear character deposited — ^and, also,
much life and taleht muddled for ever-

It is whimsical, because this absurd spectacle is
presented by manikins who are made of the same
clay as Plutarch's heroes — ^because, deliberately,
they prefer cabbages to roses. I am not at all an-
gry with them. On the contrary, when they dance
well I look on with pleasure. Man ought to dance,
but he ought to do something else, too. All genial
gentlemen in all ages have danced. Who quarrels
with dancing ? Ask Mrs. Potiphar if I ever object-
ed to it. But then, people must dance at their own
risk. If Lucy Lamb, by dancing with young Boo-
sey when he is tipsy, shows that she has no self-
respect, how can I, coolly talking with Mrs. Lamb
in the corner, and gravely looking on, respect the
young lady ? Lucy tells me that if she dances with
James she must with John. I cannot deny it, for I
am not sufficiently familiar with the regulations of
the mystery. Only this ; if dancing with sober

96 THE POTIPHAB PAPEBS.

James makes it necessary to dance with tipsy John
— ^it seems to me, upon a hasty glance at the sub*
ject, that a self-respecting Lucy would refrain from
the dance with James. Why it should be so, I can-
not understand. Why Lucy must dance with every
man who asks her, whether he is in his senses, oi
knows how to dance, or is agreeable to her or not,
is a profound mystery to Paul Potiphar. Here is a
case of woman's wrongs, decidedly. We men cull
the choicest partners, make the severest selections,
and the innocent Lucys gracefully submit. Lucy
loves James, and a waltz with him (as P. P. knows
very well from experience) is " a little heaven be-
low" to both. Now, dearest Lucy, why must you
pay the awful penance of immediately waltzing
with John, against whom your womanly instinct
rebels? And yet the laws of social life are so
stern, that Lucy must make the terrible decision,
whether it is better to waltz with James or worse
to waltz with John ! " Whether," to put it strong-
ly with Father Jerome, *^ heaven is pleasanter than
hell is painful."

J say that I watch these graceful gamesters with-
out bitter feeling. Sometimes it is sad to see
James woo Lucy, win her, marry her, and then
both discover that they have made a mistake. I
don't see how they could have helped it ; and when

A MEDITATION, ETC. 97

Che world, that loves them both so tenderly, holds
up its pure hands of horror, why, Paul Potiphar
goes quietly home to Mrs. P., who is dressing for
Lucy's ball, and says nothing. He prefers to retire
into his private room, and his slippers, and read the
last number of Bleak House, or a chapter in Vanity
Fair. If Mrs. Potiphar catches him at the latter,
she is sure to say :

*' There it is again ; always reading those exag-
gerated sketches of society. Odious man that he
is. I am sure he never knew a truly womanly wo-
man."

" Polly, when he comes back in September, FU
introduce him to you," is the only answer I have
time to make, for it is already half past ten, and
Mrs. P. must be off to the ball.

I know that our set is not the world, nor the
country, nor the city. I know that the amiable
youths who are in league to crush spooneyism are
not many, and well I know, that in our set (I mean
Mrs. P.'s) there are hearts as noble and characters
as lofty as in any time and in any land. And yet,
as the father of a family (viz. Frederic, our son), I
am constrained to believe that our social tendency
is to the wildest extravagance. Here, for instance,
is my house. It cost me eighty-five thousand dol-
lars. It is superbly furnished. Mrs. P. and I don't

5

98 THE POTIPHAB PAPEBB.

know much about such things. She was only
stringent for buhl, and the last Parisian models, so
we delivered our house into the hands of certain
eminent upholsterers to be furnished, as we send
Frederic to the tailor's to be clothed. To be sure,
I asked what proof we had that the upholsterer was
possessed of taste. But Mrs. P. silenced me, by say-
ing that it was his business to have taste, and that
a man who sold furniture, naturally knew what was
handsome and proper for my house. '

The furnishing was certainly performed with
great splendor and expense. My drawing-rooms
strongly resembled the warehouse of an ideal cabi-
net-maker. Every whim of table — every caprice
of chair and sofa, is satisfied in those rooms. There
are curtains like rainbows, and carpets, as if the
curtains had dripped all over the floor. There are
heavy cabinets of carved walnut, such as belong
in the heavy wainscotted rooms of old palaces,
set against my last French pattern of wall-paper.
There are lofty chairs, like the thrones of arch*
bishops in Gothic cathedrals, standing by the side
of the elaborately gilded frames of mirrors. Mar-
ble statues of Venus and the Apollo support my
mantels, upon which or molu Louis Quatorze clocks
ring the hours. In all possible places there are
statues, statuettes, vases, plates, teacups, and

A MEDITATION, ETC. 99

liqnor-cases. The wood-work, when white, is
elaborated in Moresco carving — when oak and
walnut, it is heavily moulded. The contrasts are
pretty, but rather sudden. In truth, my house is a
huge curiosity-shop of valuable articles — clustered
without taste, or feeling, or reason. They are
there, because my house was large and I was able
to buy them ; and because, as Mrs. P. says, one
must have buhl and or molu^ and new forms of fur-
niture, and do as well as one's neighbors, and show
that one is ridh, if he is so. They are there, in
fact, because I couldn't help it. I didn't want
them, but then I don't know what I did want.
Somehow I don't feel as if I had a home, merely
because orders were given to the best upholsterers
and fancy-men in town to send a sample of all their
wares to my house. To pay a morning call at .Mrs.
Potiphar's is, in some ways, better than goiug shop-
ping. You see more new and costly things in a
shorter time. People say, " What a love of a
chair!" "What a darling table'" "What a
heavenly sofa!" and they all go and tease their
husbands to get things precisely like them. When
Eurz Pacha, the Sennaar minister, came to a dinner
at my house, he said :

" Bless my soul ! Mr. Potiphar, your house is
just like your neighbor's."

100 THE POTIPHAE PAPEBS.

I know it. I am perfectly aware that there is no
more diflference between my house and Croesus's,
than there is in two ten-dollar bills of the same
bank. He might live in mj house and I in his,
without any confusion. He has the same curtains,
carpets, chairs, tables, Yenuses, ApoUos, busts,
vases, etc. And he goes into his room, and thinks
it's all a devilish bore, just as I do. We have each
got to re-furnish every few years, and, therefore,
have no possible opportunity for attaching our-
selves to the objects about us. -Unfortunately
Kurz Pacha particularly detested precisely what
Mrs. P. most liked, because it is the fashion to like
them. I mean the Louis Quatorze and the Louis
Quinze things.

<* Taste, dear Mrs. Potiphar," said the Pacha,
" was a thing not known in the days of those
kings. Grace was entirely supplanted . by gro-
tesqueness, and now, instead of pure and beauti-
ful Greek forms, we must collect these hideous
things. If you are going backward to find models,
why not go as far as the good ones? My dear
madam, an or molu Louis Quatorze clock would
have given Pericles a fit. Your drawing-rooms
would have thrown Aspasia into hysterics. Things
are not beautiful because they c.'St money ; nor is
any grouping handsome without harmony. Your

A MEDITATION, ET(D. 101

house is like a woman dressed in Ninon de PEn-
clos's bodice, with Queen Anne's hooped skirt, who
Ihnps in Chinese shoes, and wears an Elizabethan
ruff round her neck, and a Druse's horn on her
head. My dear madam, this is the kind of thing
we go to see in museums. It is the old stock joke
of the world."

By Jove ! how mad Mrs. Potiphar was ! She
rose from table, to the great dismay of Kurz Pa-
cha, and I could only restrain her by reminding her
that the Sennaar minister had but an imperfect
idea of our language, and that in Sennaar people
probably said what they thought when they con-
versed.

" You'd better go to Sennaar, then, yourself, Mr.
Potiphar," said my wife, as she smoothed her rum-
pled feathers.

" 'Pon my word, madam, it's my own opinion,"
replied I.

Kurz Pacha, who is a philosopher (of the Sen-
naar school), asks me if people have no ideas of
their own in building houses. I answer, none, that
I know of, except that of getting the house built.
The fact is, it is as much as Paul Potiphar can do,
to make the money to erect his palatial residence,
and then to keep it going. There are a great many
fine statues in my house, but I know nothing about

J02 THB POTIPHAB PAP£B8.

them ; I don't see why we should have such hea-
then images in reputable houses. But Mrs. P.
says :

" Pooh ! have you no love for the fine arts?"

There it is ! It doesn't do not to love the fine
arts ; so Polly is continually cluttering up the halls
and jstaircases with marble, and sending me heavy
bills for the same.

When the house was ready, and my wife had
purchased the furniture, she came and said to me :

" Now, my dear P., there is one thing we haven't
thought oVl

"What's that?"

" Pictures, you know, dear."

" What do you want pictures for?" growled I,
and rather surlily, I am afraid.

" Why to furnish the walls ; what do you sup-
pose we want pictures for?"

" I tell you, Polly," said I, " that pictures are
the most extravagant kind of furniture. Pshaw I
a man rubs and dabbles a little upon a canvacr two
feet square, and then coolly asks three hundred
dollars for it."

" Dear me. Pot," she answered, " I don't want
home-made pictures. What an idea! Do you
think I'd have pictures on my walls that were
painted in this country? — ^No, my dear husband.

A M.EDJTATION, ETC. 103

let US have some choice specia^ns of the old mas-
ters. A landscape by Rayfel,.for instance; or one
of Angel's fruit-pieces, or a cattle scene by Very-
nees, or a Madonna of Giddo's, or a boar-hunt of
Hannibal Crackeye's."

What was the use of fighting against this sort of
thing ? I told her to have it her own way. Mrs.
P. consulted Singe, the pastry cook, who told her
his cousin had just come out from Italy with a lot
of the very finest pictures in the world, which he
had bribed one of the Pope's guard to steal froip
the Vatican, and which he would sell at a bargain.

They hang on my walls, now. They represent
nothing in particular ; but in certain lights, if you
look very closely, you can easily recognize some-
thing in them that looks like a lump of something
brown. There is one very ugly woman with a con-
vulsive child in her arms, to which Mrs. P. directly
takes all her visitors, and asks them to admire, the
beautiful Shay douver of Giddo's. When I go out
to dinner with people that talk of pictures and
books, and that kind of thing, I don't like to seem
behind ; so I say, in a critical way, that Giddo was
a good painter. None of them contradict me, and
one day when somebody asked, " Which of his pic-
tures do. you prefer ?" I answered straight, " His
Shay douver," and no more questions were asked.

104 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

They hang all about the house now. The Giddo
is in the dining-room. I asked the Sennaar minis-
ter if it wasn't odd to have a religious picture in
the dining-room. He smiled, and said that it was
perfectly proper if I liked it, and if the picture of
such an ugly woman didn't take away my appe-
tite.

'< What difference does it make," said he, in the
Sennaar manner; "it would be equally out of
keeping with every other room in your house. My
dear Potiphar, it is a perfectly unprincipled house,
this of yours. If your mind were in the condition
of your house, so ill-assorted, so confused, so over-
loaded with things that don't belong together, you
would never make another cent. You have order,
propriety, harmony, in your dealings with the
Symmes's Hole Bore Co., and they are the secrets
of your success. Why not have the same elements
in your house? Why pitch every century, country,
and fashion, higgledy-piggledy into your parlors
and dining-room? Have everything you can get,
in heaven's name, but have everything in its place.
If you are a plodding tradesman, knowing and car-
ing nothing about pictures, or books, or statuary,
or ohjets de vertUj don't have them. Suppose your
neighbor chooses to put them in his house. If he
has them merely because he had the money to pay

A-MEDITATION, ETC. 105

for them, he is the butt of every picture aud book
he owns.

« When I meet Mr. Croesus in Wall street, I re-
spect him as I do a king in his palace, or a scholar
in his study. He is master of the occasion. He
commands like Nelson at the Nile. I, who am
merely a diplomatist, skulk and hurry along, and
if Mr. Croesus smiles, I inwardly thank him for his
*charity. Wall street is Croesus's sphere, and all
his powers play there perfectly. But when I meet
him in his house, surrounded by objects of art, by
the triumphs of a skill which her does not under-
stand, and for which he cares nothing — of which,
in fact, he seems afraid, because he knows any
chance question about them would trip him up —
.my feeling is very much changed. If I should ask
him what or molu is, I don't believe he could
answer, though his splendid or molu clock rang,
indignant, from the mantel. But if I should say,
* Invest me this thousand dollars,' he would secure
me eight per cent. It certainly isn't necessary to
know what or molu is, nor to have any other obfet de
vertu but your wife. Then why should you barri-
cade yourself behind all these things that you
really cannot enjoy, because you don't understand ?
If you could not read Italian, you would be a fool

to buy Dante, merely because you knew he was a
5*

106 THE POTXPHAB PAPERS.

great poet. And, in the same way, if you know
nothing about matters of art, it is equally foolish
for you to buy statues and pictures, although you
hear on all sides, that, as Mrs. P. says, one must
love art.

<' As for learning from your own pictures, you
know, perfectly well, that until you have some
taste in the nuttter, you will be paying money for
your pictures blindly, so that the only persons*
upon whom your display of art would make any
impression, will be the very ones to see that you
know nothing about it.

<' In Sennaar, a man is literally ^ the master of
the house.' He isn't surrounded by what he does
not understand ; he is not obliged to talk book and
picture, when he knows nothing about these mat-
ters. He is not afraid of his parlor, and you feel
instantly upon entering the house, the character of
the master. Please, my dear Mr. Potiphar, survey
your mansion and tell me what kind of a man it
indicates. If it does not proclaim (in your case)
the President of the Patagonia Junction, a man
shrewd, and hard, and solid, without taste or libe-
ral cultivation, it is a painted deceiver. If it tries
to insinuate by this chaotic profusion of rich and
rare objects, that you are a cultivated, accom-
plished, tasteful, and generous man, it is a bad

A MEDITATION, ETC. 107

lie, because a transparent one. Why, my dear old
Pot, the moment your servant opens the front door,
a man of sense perceives the whole thing. You
and Mrs. Potiphar are bullied by all the brilliancy
you have conjured up. It is the old story of the
fisherman and the genii. And your guests all see
it. They are too ^rell-bred to speak of it ; but I
come from Sennaar, where we do not lay so much
stress upon that kind of good-breeding. Mr. Paul
Potiphar, it is one thing to have plenty of money,
and quite another, to know how to spend it."

Now, as I told him, this kind of talk may do very
well in Sennaar, but it is absurd in a country like
ours. How are people to know that I'm rich, un-
less I show it ? I'm sorry for it, but how shall I
help it, having Mrs. P. at hand ?

" How about the library?" said she one day.

" What library ?" inquired I.

*" Why, our library, of course."

" I haven't any."

<< Do you mean to have such a house as this vtrith-
out a library?"

"Why," said I plaintively, "I don't read books —
I never did, and I never shall; and I don't care any-
thing about them. Why should I have a library ?"

" Why, because it's part of a house like this."

" Mrs. P., are you fond of books ?"

108 THE POTIFHAB PAPERS.

*' No, not particularly. But one must have some
regard to appearances. Suppose we are Hotten-
tots, you don't want us to look so, do you ?"

I thought that it was quite as barbarous to im-
prison a lot of books that we should never open,
and that would stand in gilt upon the shelves,
silently laughing us to scorn, as not to have them
if we didn't want them. I proposed a compro-
mise.

*' Is it the looks of the thing, Mrs« P. ?" said L

" That's all," she answered.

« Oh ! well, I'll arrange it."

So I had my shelves built, and my old friends
Matthews and Rider furnished me with complete
sets of handsome gilt covers to all the books that
no gentleman's library should be without, which
I arranged, carefully, upon the shelves, and had the
best-looking library in town. I locked 'em in, and
the key is always lost when anybody wants to
take down a book. However, it was a good in-
vestment in leather, for it brings me in the repu-
tation of a reading man and a patron of litera-
ture.

Mrs. P. is a religious woman — the Rev. Cream
Cheese takes care of that — ^but only yesterday she
proposed something to me that smells very strongly
of candlesticks.

A MEDITATION, ETC 109

" Pot., I want a prie-dieuJ*^

" Pray-do what!" answered I.

" Stop, you wicked man. I say I want a kneel-
ing-chair."

" A kneeling-chair?" I gasped, utterly confused.

^^ Ajprie-dieu — SLprie-dieu — ^to pray in, you know."

My Sennaar friend, who was at table, choked.
When he recovered, and we were sipping the
"Blue seal," he told me that he thought Mrs.
Potiphar in a prie-dieu was rather a more amusing
idea than Giddo's Madonna in the dining-room.

"She will insist upon its being carved hand-
somely in walnut. She will not pray upon pine.
It is a romantic, not a religious, whim. She'll
want a missal next ; vellum or no prayers. This is
piety of the * Lady Alice' school. It belongs to a
fine lady and a fine house precisely as your library
does, and it will be precisely as genuine. Mrs.
Potiphar in a pne-dieu is like that blue morocco
Comus in your library. It is charming to look at,
but there's nothing in it. Let her have the prie-dieu
by all means, and then begin to build a chapel. No
gentleman's house should be without a chapel.
You'll have to come to it, Potiphar. You'll have
to hear Cream Cheese read morning prayers in a
purple chasuble — que sais-je? You'll see religion
made a part of the newest fashion in houses, as

110 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

you already see literature and art, and with just as
much reality and reasoji."

Privately, I am glad the Sennaar minister has
gone out of town. It's bad enough to be uncom-
fortable in your own house without knowing why;
but to have a philosopher of the Sennaar school
show you why you are so, is cutting it rather too
fat. I am gradually getting resigned to my house.
I've got one more struggle to go through next
week in Mrs. Potiphar's musical party. The morn-
ing soir6es are over for the season, and Mrs. P. be-
gins to talk of the watering-places. I am getting
gradually resigned ; but only gradually.

Oh ! dear me, I wonder if this is the " home,
sweet home" business the girls used to sing about!
Music does certainly alter cases. I can't quite get
used to it. Last week I was one morning in the
basement breakfast-room, and I heard an extra cried.
I ran out of the area door— dear me! — ^before I
thought what I was about, I emerged bareheaded
from under the steps, and ran a little way after the
boy. I know it wasn't proper. I am sorry, very
sorry. I am afraid Mrs. Croesus saw me ; I know
Mrs. Gnu told it all about that morning : and Mrs.
Settum Downe called directly upon Mrs. Potiphar,
to know if it were really true that I had lost my
wits, as everybody was saying. I don't know what

A MEDITATION, ETC. Ill

Mrs. P. answered. I am sorry to have compro-
mised her so. I went immediately and ordered a
pray-do of the blackest walnut. My resignation
is very gradual. Kurz Pacha says they put on
gravestones in Sennaar three Latin words— do you
know Latin? if you don't, come and borrow some
of my books. The words are : ora 'pro me !

IV.

FROM THE

SUMMER DIARY OP MINERVA TATTLE.

FROM THE SUMMER DIARY OF MINERVA
TATTLE.

Newport, August.
It certainly is not papa's fault that he doesn't
Understand French ; but he ought not to pretend
to. It does put one in such uncomfortable situ-
ations occasionally. In fact, I think it would be
quite as well if we could sometimes " sink the
paternal," as Timon Croesus says. I suppose every
body has heard of the awfuj speech pa made in
the parlor at Saratoga. My dearest friend, Tabby
Dormouse, told me she had heard of it every-
where, and that it was ten times as absurd each
time it was repeated. By-the-by, Tabby is a dear
creature, isn't she ? It's so nice to have a spy in
the enemy's camp, as it were, and to hear every-
thing that everybody says about, you. She is not
handsome — ^poor, dear Tabby ! There's no denying
it, but she can't help it. I was obliged to tell
young Downe so, quite decidedly; for I really think
he had an idea she was good-looking. The idea of

116 THE POTIPHAR PAPERS.

Tabby Dormouse being handsome ! But she is a
useful little thing in her way ; one of my intimates.

The true story is this :

Ma and I persuaded pa to take us to Saratoga ;
for we heard the English party were to be there,
and we were anxious they should see some good
society, at ieast. It seems such a pity they
shouldn't know what handsome dresses we really
do have in this country ! And I mentioned to some
of the most English of our young men, that there
might be something to be done at Saratoga. But
they shrugged their shoulders, especially Timon
Croesus and Gauche Boosey, and said —

" Well, really, the fact is, Miss Tattle, all the
Englishmen I have ever met are, in fact, a little
snobbish. However."

That was about what they said. But I thought,
considering their fondness of the English model in '
dress aud manner, that they might have been more
willing to meet some genuine aristocracy. Yet,
perhaps, that handsome Col. Abattew is right in
saying with his grand military air —

"The British aristocracy, madam — ^the British
aristocracy is vulgar."

Well, we all went up to Saratoga. But the dis-
tinguished strangers did not come. I held back
that last muslin of mine, the yellow one, embroi-

MINEBVA TATTLE'S DIARY. 117

dered with the Alps, and a distant view of the isles
of Greece worked on the flounces, until it was im-
possible to wait longer. I meant to wear it at din-
ner the first day they came, with the pearl necklace
and the opal studs, and that heavy ruby necklace
(it is a low-necked dress). The dining-room at the
" United States" is so large that it shows off those
dresses finely, and if the waiter don't let the soup
or the gravy slip, and your neighbor (who is, like
as not, what Tabby Dormouse, with her incapacity
to pronounce the r, calls " some 'aw, 'uff man from
the country"), doesn't put the leg of his chair
through the dress, and if you don't muss it sitting
down — why, I should like to know a prettier place
to wear a low-necked muslin, with jewels, than the
dining-room of the '^ United States" at Saratoga.

Kurz Pacha, the Sennaar minister, who was up
there, and who is so smitten with Mrs. Potiphar,
said that he had known few happier moments in
this country than the dining hour at the " United
States."

" When the gong sounds," says he, " I am re-
minded of the martial music of Sennaar. When I
seat myself in the midst of such splendor of toilette,
and in an apartment so stately and so appropriate
for that display, I recall the taste of the Grim Tar-
tars, to whose ruler I had the honor of being first

118 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

accredited mnbassador. When I behold, with as
tonished eyes, the entrance of that sable society,
the measured echo of whose footfalls so properly
silences the conversation of all the nobles, I seem
to see the regular army of my beloved Sennaar in-
vesting a conquered city. This, I cry to myself,
with enthusiasm, this is the height of civilization ;
and I privately hand one of the privates in that
grand army a gold dollar, to bring me a dish of
beans. Each green bean, O greener envoy extraor-
dinary, I say to myself with rapture, should be well
worth its weight in gold, when served to such a
congress of kings, queens, and hereditary prince-
royals as are assembled here. And I find,'^ conti-
nues the Pacha, ** that I am right. The guest at
this banquet is admitted to the freedom of com and
potatoes, only after negotiations with the sable
military. It is quite the perfection of organization.
What hints I shall gather for the innocent pleasure-
seekers of Sennaar, whp still fancy that. when they
bargain for a draught of rose sherbet, they have
tacitly agreed for a glass to drink it from !

"Why, the first day I came," he went on, "I
was going to my room, and met the chambermaid
coming out. Now, as I had paid a colored gentle-
man a dollar for my dinner, in addition to the little
bill which I settle at the office, t thought it was

MINERVA TATTLE'S DIARY. 119

equally necessary to secure my bed by a slight fee
to the goddess of the chambers, I, therefore, pulled
out my purse, and offered her a bill of a small
amount. She turned the color of tomatoes.

," * Sir,' exclaimed she, and with dignity, * do you
mean to insult me?'

" *Gl-ood heavens, miss,' cried I, * quite the con-
trary,' and thinking it was not enough, I presented
another bill of a larger amount.

" * Sir,' said she, half-sobbing, * you are no gen-
tleman ; I shall leave the house !'

" I was very much perplexed. I began again :

" * Miss — ^my dear — ^I mean madam — ^how much
mmt I pay you to secure my room ?'

" * I don't understand you, sir,' replied the cham-
bermaid, somewhat mollified.

" * Why, my dear girl, if I paid Sambo a dollar
for my dinner, I expect to pay Dolly something for
my chamber, of course.'

" * Well, sir, yott are certainly very kind, I —
with pleasure, I'm sure,' replied she, entirely ap-
peased, taking the money, and vanishing.

" I," said Kurz Pacha, " entered my room and
locked the door. But I believe I was a little hasty
about giving her the money. The perfection of
civilization has not yet mounted the stairs. It is
confined to the dining-room. How beautiful is that

120 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

strain from the Fawrka^ Miss Minerva, turn turn, ti
tiy turn turn, tee tee," and the delightful Sennaar
ambassador, seeing Mrs. Fotiphar in the parlor,
•danced, humming away*

There are few pleasanter men in society. I
should think with his experience he would be hard
upon us, but he is not. The air of courts does not
seem to have spoiled him.

^' My dear madam," he said one evening to Mrs.
Potiphar, " if you laugh at anything, your laughing
is laughed at next day. Life is short. If you can't
see the jewel in the toad's head, still believe in it.
Take it for granted. The Parisienne says that the
English woman has no Je ne sais qvm. The English
woman says the Parisienne has no aplomb. Amen !
When you are in Turkey — ^why, gobble. Why
should I decline to have a good time at the Queen's
drawing-room, because English women have no je
ne sais quoi, or at the grand opera, because French
women lack aplomb f Take things smoothly. Life
is a merry-go-round. Look at your own grand-
&ther, dear Mrs. Fotiphar — fine old gentleman, I
am told — ^rather kept in what the artists call the
middlie-distance, at present — a capital shoemaker,
who did his work well — ^Alexander and John How-
ard did no more : — well, here you are, you see, with
liveries and a pew in the right church, and alto-

MINERVA lATTLE'S DIABY. 121

gether a front seat in the universe— merry-go-
ronnd, you know ; here we go up, up, ,up ; here we
go down, down, down, etc. By-the-by, pretty
strain that from Linda ; turn turn, ti turn turn,"
and away hopped the Sennaar minister.

Mrs. Potiphar was angry. Who wouldn't have
teen ? To have the old family shoes thrown in one's
teeth ! But our ambassador is an ambassador. One
must have the best society, and she swallowed it as
she has swallowed it a hundred times before. She
quietly remarked —

" Pity Kurz Pacha drinks so abominably. He
quite forgets what he's saying !"

I suppose he does, if Mrs. P. says so ; but he
seems to know well enough all the time : as he did
that evening in the library at Mrs. Potiphar's, when
he drew Cerulea Bass to the book-shelves, and be-
gan to dispute about a line in Milton, and then sud-
denly looking up at the books, said —

" Ah ! there's Milton ; now we'll see." But
when he opened the case, which was foolishly left
unlocked, he took down only a bit of wood, bound
in blue morocco, which he turned slowly over, so
that everybody saw it, and then quietly returned
it to the shelf, saying only —

" I beg pardon."

Old Pot., as Mrs. P. calls him, happened to be
6

122 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

passing at the moment, and cried out in his brusque
way —

" Oh ! I haven't laid in my books yet. Those
are only samples — ^pattern cards, you know. I don't
believe you'll find there a single book that a gentle-
man's library shouldn't be without, I got old Vel-
lum to do the thing up right, you know. I guess
he knows about the books to buy. But I've just
laid in some claret that you'll like, and I've got a
sample of the Steinberg. Old Corque understands
that kind of thing, if anybody does." And the two
gentlemen went off to try the wine.

I am astonished that a man of Kurz Pacha's tact
should have opened the book-case. People have no
right to suppose that the pretty bindings on one's
shelves are books. Why, they might as well insist
upon trying if the bloom on one's cheek, or the lace
on one's dress, or, in fact, one's figure, were real.
Such things are addressed to the eye. No gentle-
man uses his hands in good society. I've no doubt
they were originally put into gloves to keep them
out of mischief.

I am as bad as dear Mrs. Potiphar about coming
to the point of my story. But iixe truth is, that in
such engrossing places as Saratoga and Newport,
it is hardly possible to determine which is the pleas-
antest and most important thing among so many.

MINEEVA TATTLE'S DIARY. , 123

I am so fond of that old, droll Eijrz Pacha, that if I
begin to talk about him I forget everything else.
He says such nice things about people that nobody
else would dare to say; and that everybody is so
glad to hear. He is invaluable in society. And yet
one is never safe. People say he isn't gentlemanly
but when I see the style of man that is called gen-
tlemanly, I am very glad he is not. All the solemn,
pompous men who stand about like owls, and never
speak, nor laugh, nor move, as if they really had any
life or feeling, are called " gentlemanly." When-
ever Tablfy says of a new man — " But then he is so
gentlemanly !" I understand at once. It is another
case of the well-dressed wooden image. Good
heavens ! do you suppose Sir Philip Sidney, or the
Chevalier Bayard, or Charles Fox, were " gentle-
manly" in this way? Confectioners who undertake
parties might furnish scores of such gentlemen, with
hands and feet of any required size, and warranted
to do nothing " ungentlemanly." For my part, I
am inclined to think that a gentleman is something
positive, not merely negative. And if, sometimes,
my friend the Pacha says a rousing and wholesome
truth, it is none the less gentlemanly because it cuts
a little. He says it's very amusing, to observe how
coolly we play this little farce of life — ^how placid-
ly people get entangled in a mesh at which they

124 THE POTIPHAB PAPEB8.

all rail, and how £ercely they frown upon anybody
who steps out of the ring. " You tickle me and
ril tickle you ; but at all events, you tickle me,"
is the motto of the crowd.

^^ Allans P^ says he, "who cares? lead off to the
right and left — down the middle and up again.
Smile all round, and bow gracefully to your part-
ner ; then carry your heavy heart up chamber, and
drown in your own tears. Cheerfully, cheerfully,
my dear Miss Minenra. — Saratoga until August,
then Newport till the frost, the city afterwards;
and so an endless round of happiness." "*

And he steps off, humming JZ segreto per esser
felice !

Well, we were all sitting in the great drawing-
room at the '* United States." We had been bowl-
ing in our morning dresses, and had rushed in to
ascertain if the distinguished English party had ar-
rived. They had not. They were in New York, and
would not come. That was bad ; but we thought of
Newport and probable scions of nobility there, and
were consoled. But while we were in the midst of
the talk, and I was whispering very intimately with
that superb and aristocratic Nancy Fungus, who
should come in but father, walking toward us with
a wearied air, dragging his feet along, but looking
very well dressed for him. I smiled sweetly when

V-*

MINERVA TATTLES DIARY. 126

I saw that he was quite presentable, and had had
the good sense to leave that odious white hat in his
room, and had buttoned his waistcoat. The party
stopped talking as he approached, and he came up
to me.

" Minna, my dear," said he, " I hear everybody is
going to Newport."

" Oh ! yes, dear .father," I replied, and Nancy
Fungus smiled. Father looked pleased to see me
so intimate with a girl he always calls '* so aristo-
cratic and high-bred-looking," and he said to her —

" I believe your mother is going. Miss Fungus ?"

** Oh ! yes, we always go," replied she ; '* one
must have a few weeks of Newport."

** Precisely, my dear," said poor papa, as if he
rather dreaded it, but must consent to the hard ne-
cessity of fashion. " They say, Minna, that all the
parvenus are going this year, so I suppose we shall
have to go along."

There was a blow ! There was perfect silence
for a moment, while poor pa looked amiable, as if
he couldn't help embellishing his conversation with
French graces. I waited in horror; for I knew
that the girls were all tittering inside, and every
moment it became more absurd. Then out it
came. Nancy Fungus leaned her head on my
shoulder, and fairly shook with laughter. The

126 THE POTIPHAB PAPEBS.

others hid behind their fans, and the men sud-
denly walked off to the windows, and slipped on
to the piazza. Papa looked bewildered, and half
smiled. But it was a very melancholy business,
and I told him that he had better go up and dress
for dinner.

It was impossible to stay after that. The un-
happy slip became the staple of Saratoga conversa-
tion. Young Boosey (Mrs. Potiphar's witty friend)
asked Morris audibly at dinner, " Where do the
parvemis sit ? I want to sit among the parvemtsJ**

" Of course you do, sir," answered Morris, sup-
posing he meant the circle of the crime de la creme.

And so the thing went on multiplying itself.
Poor papa doesn't understand it yet. I don't d^Tre
to explain. Old Fungus, who prides himself so
upon his family (it is one of the very ancient and
honorable Virginia families, that came out of the
ark with Noah, as Kurz Pacha says of his ancestors,
when he hears that the founder of a family ** came
over with the Conqueror,") and who cannot deny
himself a joke, came up to pa, in the bar-room,
while a large party of gentlemen were drinking
cobblers, and said to him with a loud laugh : .

'* So, all the parvenus are going to Newport : are
they, Tattle?"

"Yes!" replied pa, innocently, "that's what

MINEBVA TATTLE'S DIAEY. 127

they say. So I suppose we shall all have to go,
Fungus."

There was another roar that time, but not from
the representative of Noah's Ark. It was rather
thin joking, but it did very well for the warm
weather, and I was glad to hear a laugh against
anybody but poor pa.

We came to Newport, but the story came before
us, and I have been very much annoyed at it. I
know it is foolish for me to think of it. Kurz
Pacha said —

" My dear Miss Minerva, I have no doubt it
would pain you more to be thought ignorant of
French than capable of deceit. Yet it is a very
innocent ignorance of your father's. Nobody is
bound to know French ; but you all lay so much
stress upon it, as if it were the whole duty of wo-
man to have an *air,' and to speak French, that any
ignorance becomes at once ludicrous. It's all your
own doing. You make a very natural thing absurd, '
and then grieve because some friend becomes a vic-
tim. There is your friend Nancy Fungus, who
' speaks French as well as she does English.' That
may be true ; but you ought to add, that one is of
just as much use to her as the other — that is, of no
use at all, except to communicate platitudes. What
is the use of a girl's learning French to be able to

128 THE POTIPHAE PAPERS.

say to young Tete de Choux, that it is a very warm
day, and that Newport is charmante. I don't sup-
pose the knowledge of French is going to supply
her with ideas to express. A girl who is flat in her
native English, will hardly be spirittielle in her ex-
otic French. It is a delightful language for the
natives, and for all who have thoroughly mastered
its spirit. Its genius is airy and sparkling. It is
especially the language of society, because society
is, theoretically, the playful encounter of sprightli-
ness and wit. It is the worst language I know of
for poetry, ethics, and the habit of the Saxon mind.
It is wonderful in the hands of such masters as
Balzac and George Sand, and is especially adapted
to their purposes. Yet their books are forbidden
to Nancy Fungus, Tabby Dormouse, Daisy Clover,
and all their relations. They read Telemaqtiej and
long to be married, that they may pry into Leila
and Indiana : their French, meanwhile, even if they
wanted to know anything of French literature —
which is too absurd an idea — serves them only to
say nothing to uncertain hairy foreigners who
haunt society, and to understand their nothings, in
response. I am really touched for this Ariel, this
tricksy sprite of speech, when I know that it must
do the bidding of those who can never fit its airy
felicity to any worthy purpose. I have tried these

MINERVA TATTLE'S DIARY. 129

accomplished damsels who speak French and Italian
as well as they do English. But our conversation
was only a clumsy translation of English common-
place. And yet. Miss Minerva, I think even so
sensible a woman as you, looks with honor and
respect upon one of that class. Dear me ! excuse
me! What am I thinking of? I'm etigaged to
drive little Daisy Clover on the beach at six o'clock.
She is one of those who garnish their conversation
with French scraps. Really you must pardon me,
if she is a friend of yours ; but that dry, gentle-
manly fellow, D'Orsay Firkin, says that Miss Clo-
ver's conversation is a dish of tete de veau farci.
Aren't you coming to the beach?* Everybody
goes to-day. Mrs. Gnu has arrived, and the Poti-
phars are here — ^that is, Mrs. P. Old Pot. arrives
on Sunday morning early, and is off again on Mon-
day evening. He's grown very quiet and docile.
Mrs. P. usually takes him a short drive on Monday
morning, and he comes to dinner in a white waist-
coat. In fact, as Mrs. Potiphar says, ' My husband
has not the air distingue which I should be pleased
to see in him, but he is quite as well as could be
expected.' Upon which Firkin twirls his hat in a
significant way ; you and I smile intelligently, dear
Miss Minerva; Mrs. Green and Mrs. Settum Downe

exchange glances ; we all understand Mrs. Potiphar
6*

130 THE POTIPHAE PAPEE8.

and each other, and Mrs. Potiphar understands uS;
and it is all very sweet and pleasant, and the utmost
propriety is observed, and we don't laugh loud until
we're out of hearing, and then say in the very soft-
est whispers, that it was a remarkably true obser-
vation. -This is the way to take life, my dear lady.
Let us go gently. Here we go backwards and for-
wards. You tickle, and I'll tickle, and we'll all
tickle, and here we go round — around — ^roundy !"

And the Sennaar minister danced out of the room.

He is a droll man, and I don't quite understand
him. Of course I don't entirely like him ; for it al-
ways seems as if he meant something a little differ-
ent from what he says. Laura Larmes, who reads
all the novels, and rolls her great eyes around the
ball-room — who laughs at the idea of such a girl as
Blanche Amory in Pendennis — ^who would be pen-
sive if she were not so plump— who likes " nothing
so much as' walking on the cliff by moonlight" —
who wonders that girls should want to dance on
warm summer nights when they have Nature, " and
such nature," before them — ^who, in fact, would be a
mere emotion if she were not a bouncing girl —
Laura Larmes wonders that any man can be so hap-
py as Kurz Pacha.

"Ah! Kurz Pacha," she says to him as they
stroll upon the piazza, after he has been dancing

MINERVA TATTLE'S DIARY. 131

(for the miDister dances, Itnd swears it is essential
to diplomacy to dance well), "are you really so
very happy? Is it possible you can be so gay?
Do you find nothing mournful in life?"

" Nothing, my best Miss Laura," he replies, " to
speak of; as somebody said of religion. You, who
devote yourself to melancholy, the moon, and the
source of tears, are not so very sad as you think.
You cry a good deal, I don't doubt. But when
grief goes below tears, and forces you in self-de-
fense to try to forget it — not to sit and fondle it —
then you will understand more than you do now.
I pity those of your sex, upon whom has fallen the
reaction of wealth — ^for whom there is no career —
who must sit at home and pine in a splendid ennui
— ^who have learned and who know, spite of ser-
mons and ' sound, sensible views of things,' that to
enjoy the high 'privilege' of reading books— of
cultivating their minds, and, when they are mar-
ried, minding their babies, and ministering to the
drowsy, after-dinner ease of their husbands, is not
the ftilfillment of their powers and hopes. But, my
amiable Miss Larmes, this is a class of girls and wo-
men who are not solicitous about wearing black
when their great-aunt in Denmark dies, whom they
never saw, nor when the only friend who made
heaven possible to them, falls dead at their sides.

132 THE POTIPHAR PAPERS.

Nor do they avoid Mrs. PiJtiphar's balls as a happi-
ness which they are not happy enough to enjoy —
nor do they suppose that all who attend that festi-
vity — dancing to Mrs. P.'s hired music and drinking
Mr. P.'s fine wines — are utterly given over to hilari-
ty and superficial enjoyment. I do not even think
they would be likely to run — ^with rounded eyes,
deep voice, and in very exuberant health — to any
one of us jaded votaries of fashion, and say. How
can you be so happy ? My considerate young friend,
' strong walls do not a prison make' — nor is a man
necessarily happy because he hops. You are cer-
tainly not unhappy because you make eyes at the
moon, and adjudge life to be vanity and vexation.
Your mind is only obscured by a few morning va-
pors. They are evanescent as the dew, and when
you remember them at evening they will seem to
you but as pensive splendors of the dawn."

Laura has her revenge for all this snubbing, of
course. She does not attempt to disguise her opin-
ion that Kurz Pacha is a man of "foreign morals,"
as she well expresses it. "A very gay, agreeable
man, who glides gently over the surface of things,
but knows nothing of the real trials and sorrows of
life," says the melancholy Laura Larmes, whose
appetite continues good, and who fills a large arm-
chair comfortably.

MINEEVA TATTLERS DIASX. 133

It is my opinion, however, that people of a cer-
tain size should cultivate the hilarious rather than
the unhappy. Diogenes, with the proportions of
Alderman Gobble, could not have succeeded as a
Cynic.

Here at Newport there is endless opportunity of
detecting these little absurdities of our fellow-crea-
tures. In fact, one of the greatest charms of a
watering-place, to me, is the facility one enjoys of
understanding the whole game, which is somewhat
concealed in the city. Watering-place life is a full-
dress parade of social weaknesses. We all enjoy
a kind of false intimacy, an accidental friendship.
Old^Carbuncle and young Topaz meet on the com-
mon ground of a good cigar. Mrs. Peony and Daisy
Clover are intimate at all hours. Why ? Because,
on the one hand, Mrs. P. knows that youth, and
grace, and beauty, are attractive to men, and that
if Miss Rosa Peony, her daughter, has not those
advantages, it is well to have in the neighborhood a
magnet strong enough to draw the men.

On the other hand, Daisy Clover is a girl of good
sense enough to know — even if she didn't know it
by instinct — ^that men in public places like the
prestige of association with persons of acknowledged
social position, which, by hook or by crook, Mrs.
Peony undoubtedly enjoys. Therefore to be of Mrs

134 THE POTIPHAR PAPERS.

P.'s party is to be well placed in the catalogue —
the chances are fairer — ^the gain is surer. Upon
seeing Daisy Clover with quiet little Mrs. Clover,
or plain old aunt Honeysuckle — people would
inquire, Who are the Clovers ? And no one would
know. But to be with Mrs. Peony, morning, noon,
and night, is to answer all questions of social posi-
tion.

But, unhappily, in the city, things are changed.
There no attraction is necessary but the fine house,
gay parties, and understood rank of Mrs. Peony to
draw, men to Miss Rosa's side. In Newport it does
very well not to dance with her. But in the city
it doesn't do not to be at Mrs. Peony's ball. Who
knows it so well as that excellent lady ? Therefore
darling Daisy is dropped a little when we all re-
turn.

"Sweet girl," Mrs. P. says, "really a delightful
companion for Rosa in the summer, and the father
and mother are such nice, excellent people ; not
exactly people that one knows, to be sure — ^but
Miss Daisy is really amiable and quite accomplish
ed."

Daisy goes to an occasional party at the Peonys'.
But at the opera and the theatre, and at the small,
intimate parties of Rosa and her friends, the darling
Daisy of Newport is not visible. However, she has

MINERVA TATTLE'S DIARY.. 135

her little revenges. She knows the Peonys well
and can talk intelligently about them, which puts
her quite on a level with theni in the estimation of
her own set. She rules in the lower sphere, if not
in the higher, and Daisy Clover is in the way of
promotion. Yes, and if she be very rich, and papa
and mamma are at all presentable, or if they can be
dexterously hushed up, there is no .knowing but
Miss Daisy Clover will suddenly bloom upon the
world as Mrs. P.'s daughter-in-law, wife of that
" gentlemanly" young man, Mr. Puffer Peony.

Naturally it pains me very much to be obliged to
think so of the people with whom I associate. But
I suppose they are as good as any. As Kurz Pacha
says : " If I fly from a Chinaman because he wears
his hair long like a woman, I must equally fly the
Frenchman because he shaves his like a lunatic.
The story of Jack *Spratt is the apologue of the
world." . It is astonishing how intimate he is with
our language and literature. By-the-by, that Polly
Potiphar'has been mean enough to send out to
Paris for the very silk that I relied upon as this
summer's cheoal de hataille^ and has just received it
superbly made up. The worst of it is that it is
just the thing for her. She wore it at the ball the
other night, and expected to have crushed me in
mine. Not she ! I have not summered it at New-

136 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

port for — ^well, for several years — ^for nothing, and
although I am rather beyond the strict white mus-
lin age, I thought I could yet venture a bold stroke.
So I arrayed d la Daisy Clover — not too much, pas
tropjeune — and awaited the onset.

Kurz Pacha saw me across the room, and came
up with his peculiar smile. He did not look at my
dress, but he said to me, rather wickedly, looking
at my bouquet :

" Dear me ! I hardly hoped to see spring flowers
so late in the summer."

Then he raised his eyes to mine, and I am con-
scious that I blushed.

" It's very warm. You feel very warm, I am
sure, my dear Miss Tattle," he continued, looking
straight at my face.

" You are sufficiently cool, at least, I think," re-
plied I.

" Naturally," said he; " for I've been in the im-
mediate vicinity of the boreal pole for half an hour
— a neighborhood in which, I am told, even the
most ardent spirits sometimes freeze — so you must
pardon me if I am more than usually dull, Miss
Minerva."

And the Pacha beat time to the waltz with his
head.

I looked at the part of the room from which he

MINERVA TATTLE'S DIARY. 137

had just come, and there, sure enough, in the midst
of a group, I saw the tall, and stately, and still
Ada Aiguille.

" He is a hardy navigator," continued Kurz
Pacha, " who sails for the boreal pole. It is glit-
tering enough, but shipwreck by daylight, upon a
coral reef, is no pleasanter than by night upon
Newport shoals."

"Have you been shipwrecked, Kurz Pacha?"
asked I suddenly.

He laughed softly.

" No, Miss Minerva, I am not one of the hardy
navigators ; I feeep close in to the shore. Upon the
slightest symptom of an agitated sea, I furl my
sails and creep into a safe harbor. Besides, dear
Miss Minna, I prefer tropical cruises to the antarc-
tic voyage."

And the old wretch actually looked at my black
hair. I might have said something — approving his
taste, perhaps, who knows ? — ^when I saw Mrs.
Potiphar. She was splendidly dressed in the silk,
and it's a pity she doesn't become a fine dress bet-
ter. She made for me directly.

" Dear Minnas I'm so glad to see you. Why how
young and fresh you look to-night. Really, quite
blooming ! And such a sweet, pretty dress, too,
and the darling baby-waist and all — "

138 THE POTIPHAE PAPERS.

" Yes," said that witty Gauche Boosey, " permit
me, Miss Tattle — quite an incarnate seraphim, upon
my word."

"You are too good," replied I, " my dear Polly,
it is your dress which deserves admiration, and I
flatter myself in saying so, for it is the very coun-
terpart of one I had made some months ago."

"Yes, darling, and which you have not yet
worn," replied she. " I said to Mr. P., ' Mr. P.,'
said I, ' there are few women upon whose amiabili-
ty I can count as I can upon Minerva Tattle's,
and, therefore, I am going to have a dress like hers.
Most women would be vexed about it, and say ill-
natured things if I did so. But if I have a friend,
it is Minerva Tattle ; and she will never grudge it
to me for a moment.' It's pretty ; isn't it ? Just
look here at this trimming."

And she showed me the very handsomest part of
it, and so much handsomer than mine, that I can
never wear it.

" Polly, I am so glad you know me so well," said
1. " I'm delighted with the dress. To be sure? it's
rather prononce for your style ; but that's nothing."

Just then a polka struck up.

" Come along ! give me this turn," said Boosey,
and putting his arm round Mrs. Potiphar's waist, he
whirled her off into the dance.

MINERVA TATTLE'S DIARY. 139

How I did hope somebody would come to ask
me. Nobody came.

"You don't dance?" asked Kurz Pacha, who
stood by dfjiring my little talk with Polly P.

" Oh ! yes," answered I, and hummed the polka.

Kurz Pacha hummed, too, looked on at the
dancers a few minutes, then turned to me, and,
looking at my bouquet, said :

" It is astonishing how little taste there is for
spring-flowers."

At that moment young Croesus " came in," warm
with the whirl of tbe dance, with Daisy Clover.

" It's very warm," said he, in a gentlemanly man-
ner.

" Dear me ! yes, very warm," said Daisy.

" Been long in Newport ?"

" No ; only a few days. We always come, after
Saratoga, for a couple of weeks. But isn't it de-
lightful ?"

" Quite so," said Timon, eooUy, and smiling at
the idea of anybody's being enthusiastic about
anything. That elegant youth has pumped life
dry ; and now the pump only wheezes.

"Oh !" continued Daisy, "it's so pleasant to run
away from the hot city, and breathe this cool air.
And then Nature is so beautiful. Are you fond of
Nature, Mr. Croesus ?"

140 THE POTIPHAR PAPEBS.

" Tolerably," returaed Timon.

" Oh ! but Mr. Croesus ! to go to the glen and
skip stones, and to walk on the cliff, and drive to
Bateman's, and the fort, and to go to the beach by
moonlight; and then the bowling-alley, and the
archery, and the Germania. Oh ! it's a splendid
place. But, perhaps, you don't like natural scene-
ry, Mr. Croesus ?"

" Perhaps not," said Mr. Croesus.

** Well, some people don't," said darling little
Daisy, folding up her fan, as if quite ready for
another turn.

"Come, now; the»e it is," said Timon, and,
grasping her with his right arm, they glided away.

" Kurz Pacha," said I, " I wonder who sent Ada
Aiguille that bouquet ?"

" Sir John Franklin, I presume," returned he.

" What do you mean by tjiat ?" asked I.

Before he could answer, Boosey and Mrs. Poti-
phar stopped by us.

"No, no, Mr. Boosey," panted Mrs. P., "I will
not have him introduced. They say his father act-
ually sells drygoods by the yard in Buffalo."

" Well, but he doesn't, Mrs. Potiphar."

"I know that, and it's all very well for you
young, men to know him, and to drink, and play
billiards, and smoke, with him. And he is hand-

MINEEVA TATTLE'S DIARY 141

some to be sure, and gentlemanly, and I am told,
very intelligent. But, you know, we can't be visit-
ing our shoemakers and shopmen. That's the
great difficulty of a watering place, one doesn't
know who's who. Why Mrs. Gnu was here three
summers ago, and there sat next to her, at table, a
middle-aged foreign gentleman, who had only a
slight accent, and who was so affiible and agreeable,
so intelligent and modest, and so perfectly familiar,
with all kinds of little ways, you know, that she
supposed he was the Eussian minister, who, she
heard, was at Newport incognito for his health.
She used to talk with him in the parlor, and allow-
ed him to join her upon the piazza. Nobody could
find out who he was. There were suspicions, of
course. But he paid his bills, drove his horses, and
was universally liked. Dear me ! appearances are
so deceitful ! who do you think he was ?"

" I'm sure I can't imagine."

" Well, the next spring she went to a music store
in Philadelphia, to buy some guitar strings for Cla-
ribel, and who should advance to sell them but the
Russian minister ! Mrs. Gnu said she colored — "

"So I've always understood," said Gauche,
laughing.

" Fie ! Mr. Boosey," continued Mrs. P. smiling.
. But the music-seller didn't betray the slightest

142 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

consciousness. He sold her the strings, received
the money, and said nothing, and looked nothing.
Just think of it! She supposed him to be a gentle-
man, and he was really a music-dealer. You see
that's the sort of thing one is exposed to here, and
though your friend may be very nice, it isn't safe
for me to know him. In a country where there's
no aristocracy one can't be too exclusive. Mrs.
Peony says she thinks that in future she shall really
pass the summer in a farm-house, or if she go to a
watering-place, confine herself to her own rooms
and her carriage, and look at people through the
blinds. I'm afraid, myself, it's coming to that.
Everybody goes to Saratoga now, and you see how
Newport is crowded. For my part I agree with
the Rev. Cream Cheese, that there are serious evils
in a republican form of government. What a hide-
ous head-dress that is of Mrs. S^ttum Downe's !
What a lovely polka-redowa !"

" So it is, by Jove ! Come on," replied the gen-
tlemanly Boosey, and they swept down the hall.

^^ Ah! deir exclaimed a voice close by us —
Kurz Pacha and I turned at the same moment.
We beheld a gentleman twirling his moustache and
a lady fanning. They were smiling intelligently
at each other, and upon his whispering something
that I could not hear, she said, "JFi/ donc^^^ and

MINERVA TATTLE'S DIAEY. 143

folding her fan and laying her arm upon his shoul-
der, they slid along again in the dance.

" Who is that ?" inquired the Pacha.

" Don't you know Mrs. Vite ?" said I, glad of
my chance. " Why, my dear sir, she is our great
social success. She shows what America can do
under a French regime. She performs for society
the inestimable service of giving some reality to the
pictures of Balzac and George Sand, by the quality
of her life and manners. She is just what you
would expect a weak American girl to be who was
poisoned by Paris — who mistook what was most
obvious for what was most characteristic — ^whose
ideas of foreign society and female habits were
based upon an experience of resorts, more re-
nowned for ease than elegance — who has no in-
stinct fine enough to tell her that a lionne can-
not be a lady — ^who imitates the worst manners
of foreign society, without the ability or opportuni-
ty of perceiving the best — ^who prefers a doMe en-
tendre to a bon-mot — who courts the applause of men
whose acquaintance gentlemen are careless of ac-
knowledging — who likes fast driving and dancing,
low jokes, and low dresses — ^who is, therefore, bold
without wit, noisy without mirth, and notorious
without a desirable reputation. That is Mrs. Vite."

Kurz Pacha rolled up his eyes.

144 THE POTIPHAB PAFEBS.

" Good Jupiter ! Miss Minerva," cried he, " is
this you that I hear? Why, you are warmer in
your denunciation of this little wisp of a woman
than you ever were of fat old Madame Gorgon, with
her prodigious paste diamonds. Eeally, you take
it too hard. And you, too, who used to skate so
nimbly over the glib surface of society, and cut
such coquettish figures of eight upon the characters
of your friends. You must excuse me, but it seems
to me odd that Miss Minerva Tattle, who used to
treat serious things so lightly, should now be treat-
ing light things so seriously. You ought to fre-
quent the comic opera more, and dine with Mrs.
Potiphar once a week. If your good-humor can't
digest such a hors Sornvre as little Mrs. Vite, what
will you do with such o, piece de resistance as Madame
Gorgon?"

Odious plain speaker ! Yet I like the man. But,
before I could reply, up came another couple — Caro-
line Pettitoes and Norman de Famille.

" You were at the bowling-alley ?" said he.

" Yes, answered Caroline.

" You saw them together?"

« Yes."

" Well, what do you think?"

" Why, of course, that if he be not engaged to her
he ought to be. He has taken her out in his wagoo

MINERVA TATTLE'S DIAEY. 145

three times, he has sent her four bouquets, he
waltzes with her every night, he bowls with her
party every morning, and if that does not mean that
he wants to marry her, I should like to know what
it does mean," replied Caroline, tossing her head.

Norman de Famille smiled, and Caroline con-
tinued, with rather a flushed face, because Norman
had been doing very much the same thing with
her:

♦•What is a girl to understand by such atten-
tions?"

" Why, that the gentleman finds it an amusing
game, and hopes she is equally pleased," returned
de Famille.

" Merely M. de Famille," said Caroline, with an
energy I never suspected in her, " and at the end of
the game she may go break her heart, I suppose."

"Hearts are not so brittle, Miss Pettitoes," re-
plied Norman. " Besides, why should you girls
always play for such high stakes ?"

They were just about beginning the waltz again,

when the music stopped, and they walked away.

But I saw the tears in Caroline's eyes. I don't

know whether they were tears of vexation, or of

disappointment. The men have the advantage of

us, because they can control their emotion so much

better. I suppose Caroline blushed and cried be-
7

)40 TAB POTIPHAB PAPEB8.

cause sho found herself blushing and crying, quite
as much as because she fancied her partner didn't
care for her.

I turned to Kurz Pacha, who stood by my side,
smiling, and rubbing his hands.

" A charming evening we have had of it, Miss
Minerva,'' said he, " an epitome of life — a kind of
last-new-novel effect. The things that we have
heard and seen here, multiplied and varied by a
thousand or so, produce the net result of Newport.
Given, a large house, music, piazzas, beaches, cliff,
port, griddle-cakes, fast horses, sherry-cobblers,
ten-pins, dust, artificial flowers, innocence, worn-
out hearts, loveliness, black-legs, bank-bills, small
men, large coat-sleeves, little boots, jewelry, and
polka- redowas ad libitum^ to produce August in New-
port. For my part, Miss Minerva, I like it. But
it is a dizzy and perilous game. I profess to seek
and enjoy emotions, sol go to watering-places. Ada
Aiguille says she doesn't like it. She declares that
she thinks less of her fellow-creatures after she has
been*here a little while. She goes to the city after-
ward to refit her faith, probably. Daisy Clover
thinks it's heavenly. Darling little Daisy I life is
an endless German cotillon to her. She thinks the
world is gay hut well-meaning, is sure that it goes
to church on Sundays, and never tells lies. Cerulea

MINERVA TATTLE'S DIAET. 147

Bass looks at it for a moment with her hard, round,
ebony eyes, and calmly wonders that people will
make such fools of themselves. And you, Miss Mi-
nerva, pardon me — ^you come because you are in the
habit of coming — ^because you are not happy out of
such society, and have a tantalizing sadness in it.
Your system craves only the piquant sources of
scandal and sarcasm, which can never satisfy it.
You wish that you liked tranquil pleasures and be-
lieved in men and women. But you get no nearer
than a wish. You remember when you did believe,
but you remember with a shudder and a sigh. You
pass for a brilliant woman. You go out to dinners
and balls ; and men are, what is called, ' afraid of
you.' You scorn most of us. You are not a favorite,
but your pride is flattered by the very fear on the
part of others which prevents your being loved.
Time and yourself are your only enemies, and they
are in league, for you betray yourself to him. You
have found youth the most fascinating and fatal of
flirts ; but he, although your heart and hope clung
to him despairingly, has jilted you, and thrown you
by. Let him go, if you can, and throw after him
the white muslin and the baby-waist. Give up
milk and the pastoral poets. Sail, at least, under
your own colors ; even pirates hoist a black flag.
An old belle who endeavors to retain by sharp

148 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

wit and spicy scandal the place she held only
in virtue of youth and spirited beauty, is, in a
new circle of youth and beauty, like an enemy firing
at yon from the windows of your own house. The
diflBculty of your position, dear Miss Minerva, is,
that you can never deceive those who alone are
worth deceiving. Daisy Clover and Young America,
of course, consider you a talented, tremendous kind
of woman. Daisy Clover wonders all the men are
not in love with you. Toung America sniffs and
shakes its little head, and says disapprovingly,
strong minded woman !' But you fail, you know,
notwithstanding. You couldn't bring old Potiphar
to his knees when he first came home from China,
and he must needs plunge in love with Miss Polly,
whom you despised, but who has certainly profited
by her intimacy with Mrs. Gnu, Mrs. CroBsus, and
Mrs. Settum Downe, as you saw by her conversation
with you this evening.

" Ah, Miss Minerva, I am only a benighted diplo-
mat from Sennaar ; but, when I reflect upon all I
see around me in your country ; when I take my
place with terror in a railroad car, because the cer-
tainty of frightful accidents fills all minds with the
same vague apprehension as if a war were raging in
the land ; when I see the universal rush and fury —
young men who never smile, and who fall victims

MINEEVA TATTLE'S DIABT. 149

to paralysis ; old men who are tired of life and dread
death ; young women pretty and incapable ; old
women listless and useless ; and both young and
old, if women of sense, perishing of ennui, and long-
ing for some kind of a cweer — why, I don't say that
it is better anywhere else — ^perhaps it isn't — ^in
most ways it certainly is not. I don't say, certainly,
that there's a higher tone of life in London or Paris
than in New York, but only that, whatever it may
be there, this, at least, is rather a miserable busi-
ness."

"What is your theory of life, then?" asked I.
" What do you propose ?"

Kurz Pacha smiled again.

" Suppose, Miss Minerva, I say the Golden Rule
is my theory of life. You think it vague ; but it is
in that like most theories. Then I propose that
we shall all be good. Don't you think it a feasible
proposition ? I see that you think you have effec-
tually disposed of all complaint by challenging the
complainer to suggest a remedy. But it is clear to
me that a man in the water has a right to cry out,
although he may not distinctly state how he pro-
poses to avoid drowning. Your reasoning is that
of those excellent Americans who declare that
foreign nations ought not to strike for a republic
until they are fit for a republic — as if empires and

160 THE POTIPHAfi PAPERS.

monarchies founded colleges to propagate demo-
cracy. Probably you think it wiser that men
shouldn't go into the water until they can swim.
Mr. Carlyle, I remember, was bitterly reproached
for grumbling in his ** Chartism," and other works,
as if a man had no moral right to complain of hunger
until he had grasped a piece of bread. * What do
you propose to do, Mr. Carlyle?' said they, * what
with the Irish, for instance ?' Mr. C. said that he
would compel every Irishman to work, or he would
sink the island in the sea. ^ Barbarous man, this is
your boasted reform !' cried they in indignant cho-
rus, unsuited either way, and permitting the Irish
to go to the dogs in the meanwhile. So suffer me,
dearest Miss Minerva, to regret a state of things
which no sensible man can approve. Even if it
seems to you light, allow me, at least, to treat it
seriously, nor suppose I love anjrthing less, because
I would see it better. You are the natural fruit
of this state of things, Minerva Tattle ! By their
fruits ye shall know them."

After a few moments, he added in the old way :
"Don't think I am going to break my heart
about it, nor lose my appetite. Look at the absur-
dity of the whole thing. I'm preaching to you in
your baby-waist, here in a Newport ball-room at
midnight. I humbly beg your pardon. There are

MINERVA TATTLE'S DIARY. 151

more potent preachers here than I. Besides, I'm
engaged to Mrs. Potiphar's supper at 12. Take
things more gently, dear Miss Minerva. Don't
make faces at Mrs. Vite, nor growl at your dar-
ling Polly. Women as smart as you are, will
say precisely as smart things of you as you say
of them. We shall all laugh, first with you, and
then at you. But don't deny yourself the pleasur
of saying the smart things in hope that they will
also refrain. That's vanity, not virtue. People are
much better than you think, but they are also much
worse. I might have been king of Sennaar, but I
am only his ambassador. You might have been
only a chambermaid, but you are the brilliant and
accomplished Miss Tattle. Tum, tum, tum, — ^ti, ti,
ti — ^what a pretty waltz ! Here come Daisy and
Timon Croesus, and now Mrs. Potiphar and Gauche
Boosey, and now again Caroline Pettitoes and de
Famille. She is smiling again, you see. She darts
through the dance like a sunbeam as she is. Caro-
line is a philosopher. Just now, you remember, it
was down, down, down — ^now it is up, up, up. It
is a good world, if you don't rub it the wrong way.
Sit in the sun as much as possible. One preserves
one's complexion, but gets so cold in the shade.
Ah ! there comes Mrs. Potiphar. Why, she is ra-
diant! She shakes her fan at m^. Adieu, Miss

162 THE POTIPHAE PAPEBS.

Minerva. Sweet dreams. To-morrow morning a
the Bowling Alley at eleven, you know, and the
drive at six. Au recoirP

And he was gone. The ball was breaking up.
A few desperate dancers still floated upon the floor.
The chairs were empty. The women were shawl-
ing, and the men stood attendant with bouquets.
I went to a window and looked out. The moon
was rising, a wan, waning moon. The broad fields
lay dark beneath, and as the music ceased, I heard
the sullen roar of the sea. If my heart ached with
an indefinite longing — ^if it felt that the airy epicur-
ism of the Pacha was but a sad cynicism, mas-
querading in smiles — ^if I dreaded to ask whether
the wisest were not the saddest— if the rising moon,
and the plunging sea, and the silence of midnight,
were mournful — if I envied Daisy Clover her sweet
sleep and vigorous waking — why, no one need ever
know it, nor suspect that the brilliant Minerva
Tattle is a failure.

V.

THE POTIPHARS IN PARIS.

A LETTER FROM MISS CAROLINE PETTITOES
TO MMS. BETTUM DOWNS.

THE POTIPHARS IN PARIS.

A LETTER FROM HISS CAROLIITE PETTITOES TO MRS. SETTUM
DOWWE.

Paeis, October.

My dear Mrs. Downe — Here we are at last ! I
can hardly believe it. Our coining was so sudden
that it seems like a delightful dream. Tou know at
Mrs Potiphar's supper last August in Newport, she
was piqued by Gauche Boosey's sajring, in his
smiling, sarcastic way :

" What ! do you really think this is a pretty sup-
per ? Dear me ! Mrs. Potiphar, you ought to see
one of our petks soupers in Paris, hey Croesus ?" and
then he and Mr. Timon Croesus lifted their brows
knowingly, and smiled, and glanced compassionate
ly around the table.

" Paris, Paris !" cried Mrs. Potiphar ; " you young
men are always talking about Paris, as if it were
heaven. Oh ! Mr. P., do take me to Paris. Let's
make up a party, and slip over. It's so easy now,
you know. Come, come. Pot., I know you won't
deny me. Just for two or three months. The

156 THE POTIPHAB PAPEB8.

truth is," said she, turning to D'Orsay Firkin, who
wore that evening the loveliest shirt-bosom I ever
saw, ^* I want to send home some patterns of new
dresses to Minerva Tattle."

They all laughed, and in the midst Kurz Pacha,
who was sitting at the side of Mrs. Potiphar, inquired :

<< What colors suit the Indian summer best, Mrs.
Potiphar?"

"Well, a kind of misty color," said Boosey, laugh-
ingly, and emphasizing missed, as if he meant some
pun upon the word.

"Which conceals the outline of the landscape,"
interrupted Mrs. Gnu.

" Cajoling you with a sense of warmth on the
very edge of winter, eh?" asked the Sennaar min-
ister.

Another loud laugh rang around the table.

" I thought Minerva Tattle was a friend of yours,
Kurz Pacha," said Mrs. Gnu, smiling mischievously,
and playing with her beautiful bouquet, which Mrs.
Potiphar told me Timon Croesus had sent her.

" Certainly, so she is," replied he. " Miss Mi-
nerva and I understand each other perfectly. I
like her society immensely. The truth is, I am
always better in autumn ; the air is both cool and
bright."

As he said this he looked fixedly at Mrs. Gnu,

THE POTIPHABS IN PARIS. • 157

and there was not quite so much laughing. I am
sure I don't know what they meant by talking about
autumn. I was busy talking with Mr. Firkin about
Daisy Clover's pretty morning dress at the Bowling
Alley, and admiring his shirt-bosom. Suddenly
there was a knock at the door, and an exquisite
bouquet was handed in for Kurz Pacha.

" Why didn't you wait until to-morrow ?" said he,
sharply.

The man stammered some excuse^ and the am-
bassador took the flowers. Mrs. Gnu looked at
them closely, and praised them very much, and
quietly glanced at her own, which were really splen-
did. Kurz Pacha showed them to all the ladies at
table, and then handed them to Mrs. Potiphar, say-
ing to her, as he half looked at Mrs. Gnu :

" There is nothing autumnal here."

Mrs. Potiphar thanked him with real delight,
and he turned toward Mrs. Gnu, at whom he had
been constantly looking, and who was playing pla-
cidly with her bouquet, and said with the air of
paying a great compliment :

" To offer you a bouquet, madame, would be to
throw pearls before swine."

We were all silent a moment, and then the young
men sprang up together, while we women laughed,
half afraid.

158 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

" Good heavens ! Eurz Pacha, what do you
mean ?" cried Mrs. Potiphar.

" Mean ?" answered he, evidently confused, and
blushing ; ^* why, I'm afraid I have made some mis-
take. I meant to say something very polite, but
my English sometimes gives way/'

"Your impudence never does," mutteted Mrs,
Gnu, who was unbecomingly red in the face.

" My dear madame," said the minister to her, "I
assure you I meant only to use a proverb in a com-
plimentary way; but somehow I have got the
wrong pig by the ear."

There was another burst of laughter. The young
men fairly lay down and screamed. Mr. Potiphar
exploded in great ha ha's and ho ho's, from the end
of the table.

"Mrs. Potiphar," said Mrs, Gnu, with dignity,
"I didn't suppose I was to be insulted at your
table."

And she went toward the door.

"Mrs. Gnu, Mrs. Gnu," said Polly, smothering
her laughter as well as she could, " don't go. —
Kurz Pacha will explain. Fm sure he means no
insult."

Here she burst out laughing again ; while the
poor Sennaar ambassador stood erect, and utterly
confounded by what was going on.

THE POTIPHABS IN PAfilS. 159

" I'm sure — ^I don't know — ^I didn't — I wouldn't
— ^Mrs. Gnu knows ;" said he, in the greatest em-
barrassment. "I beg your pardon sincerely,
madame." And he looked so humble and repent-
ant that I was really sorry for him ; but I saw Mr.
Firkin laughing afresh every time he looked at the
ambassador, as if he saw something sly behind his
penitence.

"Perhaps," said Firkin at last, "Kurz Pacha
means to say that to offer flowers to a lady who
has already so beautiful a bouquet, would be to
carry coals to Newcastle."

« That is it," cried the Pacha; " to Newcastle,"
and he bowed to Mrs. Grnu.

" Come, Mrs. Gnu, it's only a mistake," said Mrs.
Potiphar.

But Mrs/Gnu looked rather angry still, although
Gauche Boosey tried very hard to console her, say-
ing as many honrmots as he could think of— and you
know how witty he is. He said at last :

« Why is Mrs. Gnu like Rachel?"

«' Rachel who?" asked L

Pmsure itwas an innocent question; but they
all fell to laughing again, and Mr. Firkin positively
cried with fun.

** D'ye give it up?" asked Mr. Boosey.

" Yes," said Mrs. Potiphar.

160 THE POTIPHAE PAPERS.

" Why, because she will not be comforted."

'* There wasn't half so much laughing at this as
at my question — ^although Mrs. Potiphar said it was
capital, and I thought so, too, when I found out
who Eachel was.

But Mrs. Gruu continued to be like Bachel, and
Mr. Boosey continued to try to amuse her. I think
it was very hard she wouldn't be amused by such a
funnyman ; and he said, at last, aloud to her, mean-
ing all of us to hear :

" Well, Mrs. Gnu, upon my honor, it is no epicure
to try to console you."

She did laugh at this, however, and so did the others.

"Have you ever been in Sennaar, Mr. Boosey?"
said Kurz Pacha.

"No; why?"

" Why, I thought we might have learned English
at the same school."

Mr. Boosey looked puzzled; but Mr. Potiphar
broke in :

" Well, Mrs. Gnu, I'm glad to see you smile at
last. After all, the remark of the ambassador's was
only what they would call in France, * a perfect
bougie of a joke.' "

" Good evening, Mrs. Potiphar," cried the Sen-
naar minister, rising suddenly, and running toward
the door. We heard him next under the window

THE POTIPHARS IN PAMi . 161

going off in great shouts of laughter, and whistling
in the intervals, " Hail Columbia!" What shock-
ing habits he has for a minister !

I don't know how it was that Mr. Potiphar was
in such good-humor ; but he promised his wife she
should go to Paris, and that she might select her
party. So she invited us all who were at the table.
Mrs. Gnu declined : but I knew mamma would let
me go with the Potiphars.

" Dear Pot.," said Mrs. P., " we shall be gone so
short a time, and shall be so busy, and hurrying
from one place to another, that we had better leave
little Freddy behind. Poor, dear little fellow, it
will be much better for him to stay."

Mr. P. looked a little sober at this ; but he said
nothing except to ask :

" Shall you all be ready to sail in a fortnight ?"

" Certainly, in a week," we all answered.

" Well, then, we must hurry home to prepare,"
said he. "I shall write for state-rooms for us in
Monday's boat, Polly."

" Very well ; that's a dear Pot.," said she ; and
as we all rose she went up to him, and took his arm
tenderly. It was an unusual sight : I never saw her
do it before. Mrs. Gnu said to me :

"Well, really, that's rather peculiar. I think
people had better make love in private."

162 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

" No, by Jove," whispered Mr. Boosey to me ;
and I am afraid he had drank freely, as I have once
or twice before heard that he did ; but the world is
such a gossip ! — '< No, she doesn't let her good
works of that kind shine before men."

" Why, Mr. Boosey," said I, " how can you ?"

Will you believe, darling Mrs. Downe, that in-
stead of answering, he sort of winked at me, and
said, under his voice, " Good night, Caroline." I
drew myself up, you may depend, and said coldly:

" Good evening, Mr. Boosey."

He drew himself up, too, and said :

" I called you Caroline, you called me Mr. Boosey."

And then, looking straight and severely at me,
he actually winked again.

Then, of course, I knew he was not responsible
for his actions.

Ah me, what things we are ! Just as I was leav-
ing the room with Mrs. Gnu, who had matronized
me, Mr. Boosey came up vnth such a soft, pleading
look in his eyes, that seemed to say, ^< please forgive
me," and put out his hand so humbly, and appeared
so sorry and so afraid that I would not speak to him,
that I really pitied him : but when, in his low, rich
voice, he said :

" Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remem-
bered «"—

THE POTIPHA-KS IN PARIS. 163

I couldn't hold out ; wasn't it pretty ? So I put
out my hand, and he shook it tenderly, and said " to-
morrow" in a way — ^well, dear Mrs. Downe, I will
be frank with you — ^that made me happy all night.

At this rate I shall never get to Paris. But the
next day it was known everywhere we were going,
and everybody congratulated us. Our party met at
the Bowling Alley, and we began to make all kinds
of plans.

" Oh ! weHl take care of all the arrangements,"
said Mr. Boosey, nodding toward Mr. CrcBsus and
Mr. Firkin.

"Mr. Boosey, were you presented to the Em-
peror ?" inquired Kurz Pacha.

" Certainly I was," replied he; "I have a great
respect for Louis Napoleon. Those Frenchmen
didn't know what they wanted ; but he knew well
enough what he wanted : they didn't want him,
perhaps, but he did want them, and now he has
them. A true nephew of his uncle, Kurz Pacha ;
and you can see what a manHhe great Napoleon
must have been, when the little Napoleon succeeds
so well upon the strength of the name."

" Why, you are really enthusiastic about the Em-
perors," said the Ambassador.

" Certainly," replied Mr. Boosey, " I have always
been a great Neapolitan."

164 THE POTIFHAB PAPERS.

Kurz Pacha stared at him a moment, and then
took a large pinch of snuff solemnly. I think it's
very ill-bred to stare as he does sometimes, when
somebody has made a remark. I saw nothing par-
ticular in that speech of Mr. Boosey's ; and yet
D'Orsay Firkin smiled to himself as he told Mrs.
Gnu it was her turn.

"I wonder, my dear Mrs. Potiphar," said the
Sennaar minister, seating himself by her side, as the
game went on, ''that Europeans should have so
poor an idea of America and Americans, when such
crowds of the very best society are constantly cross-
ing the ocean. Now, you and your friends are
going to Paris, perhaps to other parts of Europe,
and I should certainly suppose that, without flat-
tery (taking another pinch of snuff), the foreigners
whom you meet might get rid of some of their pre-
judices against the Americans. You will go, you
know, as the representatives of a republic where
social ranks are not organized to the exclusion of
any, but where talent and character always secure
social consideration. The simplicity of the re-
publican idea and system will appear in your
manners and modes of life. Leaving to the children
of a society based upon antique and aristocratic
principles, to squander their lives in an aimless
luxury, you will carry about with you, as it were

THE POTIPHARS IN PABIS. 165

the fresh airs and virgin character of a new country
and civilization. When you go to Paris, it will be
like a sweet country breeze blowing into a per-
fumer's shop. The customers will scent something
finer than the most exquisite essence, and will prefer
the fresh fragrance of the flower to the most elabo-
rate distillation. Roses smell sweeter than attar of
roses. You and your party, estimable lady, will be
the roses. You will not (am I right this time?)
carry coals to Newcastle ; for, if any of your com-
panions think that the sharp eye of Paris will not.
pierce their pretensions, or the satiric tongue of
Paris fail to immortalize it, they mistake greatly.
You cannot beat Paris with its own weapons ; and
Paris will immensely respect you if you use your
own. Poor little Mrs. Vite thinks she passes for a
Parisienne in Paris. Why, there is not a chiffonnier
in the street at midnight than couldn't see straight
through the little woman, and nothing would better
please the Jardin MahUle than to have her for a
butt. My dear madame, the ape is a very ingenious
animal, and his form much resembles the human.
Moles, probably, and the inhabitants of the planet
Jupiter, do not discern ihe difference ; but I rather
think we do. — A ten-strike, by Venus ! well done,
Mrs. Grnu," cried the Ambassador; "now, Mrs.
Potiphar."

166 THE POTIPHAE PAPERS.

The Pacha didn't play; but he asked Mr. Pir-
kia what was a good average for a man, in the
game.

"Well, a spare every time,** said he.

" Mr. Firkin," asked Mrs. Gnu, " what is a good
woman's average ?"

" Does any lady here know that ?" inquired the
Pacha, looking round.

" No," said Mr. Boosey ; " we must send and in-
quire of Miss Tattle."

" How pleasantly the game goes on, dear Mrs.
Gnu," said the Pacha; "but Miss Minerva ought
to be here, she always holds such a good hand at
every game."

*• I think," said Mrs.. Gnu, " that if she once got
a good hold of my hand, she wouldn't let it go im-
mediately."

*« Good !" shouted Mr. Boosey.

" Hi, hi !" roared Mr. Potiphar.

The Pacha took snuff placidly, and said quietly :

" You've fairly trumped my trick, and taken it,
Mrs. Gnu."

"I should say the trick has taken her," whis-
pered Mr. Firkin at my elbojv to Kurz Pacha.

The Sennaar ambassador opened his eyes wide,
and offered Mr. Firkin his snuff-box.

Monday came at length. It was well known

THE POTIPHAES IN PARIS. 167

that we were all going — ^the Potiphars and the rest
of us. Everybody had spoken of the difficulty of
getting state-rooms on the steamer to town, and
hoped we had spoken in time.

"I have written and secured my rooms," said Mr.
Potiphar to everybody he met ; " I am not to be
left in the lurch, my dear sir, it isn't my way."
And then he marched on, Gauche Boosey said, as
if 6t least both sides of the street were his way.
He's changed a great deal lately.

The De Families were going the same day.
"Hope you've secured rooms, De Famille," said
Mr. Potiphar blandly to him.

" No," answered he, shortly ; *' no, not yet ; it
isn't my way ; I don't mean to give myself trouble
about things ; I don't bother ; it isn't my way."

And each went his own way up and down the
street. But early on Monday afternoon Mr. De
Famille and his family drove toward Fall Kiver,
from which place the boat starts.

Monday evening the Potiphars and the rest of us
went to the wharf at Newport, and presently the
boat came up. We bundled on board, and as soon
as he could get to the office Mr. Potiphar asked for
the keys of his rooms.

" Why, sir," said the clerk, ** Mr. De Faipille has
them. He came on board at Fall Biver and asked

168 THE POTIPHAB PAPEB8.

for your keys, as if the rooms had been secured for
him,"

" What does that mean ?" demanded Mr. Poti-
phar.

" Oh ! ah ! I remember now," said Mr. Boosey.
" I saw the De Families all getting into a carriage
for a little drive, as Mr De F. said, about two
o'clock this afternoon."

Mr. Potiphar looked like a thunder-storm. " What
the devil does it mean ?" asked he of the clerk,
while the passengers hustled him, and punched him,
and the hook of an unbrella-stick caught in his cra-
vat-knot, and untied it.

" Send up immediatly, and say that Mr. Potiphar
wants his state-rooms," said he to the clerk.

In a few minutes the messenger returned and
said —

" Mr. De Famille's compliments to Mr. Potiphar.
Mr. De Famille and his family have retired for the
night, but upon arriving in the morning he will
explain everything to Mr. Potiphar's satisfaction."

" Jolly !" whispered Mr. Boosey, rubbing his
hands, to Mr. Firkin, on whose arm I wa» leaning.

" Are you fond of the Italian Opera, Mr. Poti-
phar ?" inquired Kurz Pacha, blandly.

Mr. P. sat down upon a settee and looked at
Qothiug.

THE POTIPHABS IN PAEIS. 169

"O Patience! do verify the quotation and smile,"
said the ambassador to her.

" It's a mean swindle," said Mr. Potiphar. " Pll
have satisfaction. I'll go break open the. door,"
and he started.

" My dear, don't be in a passion," said Mrs. Poti-
phar, "and don't be a fool. Remember that the
De Families are not people to be insulted. It
won't do'to quarrel with the De Families."

" Splendid !" ejaculated Kurz Pacha.

" I've no doubt he'll explain it all in the morn-
ing," continued Mrs. Potiphar, ** there's some mis-
take ; why not be cool about it ? Besides, Mr. De
Famille is an elderly gentleman and requires his
rest. I do think you're positively unchristian,
Mr. Potiphar. The idea of insulting the De Famil-
ies !"

And Mrs. Potiphar patted her little feet upon the
door in front of the ladies' cabin, where we were all
collected.

"Where are you going to sleep?" asked Mr.
Potiphar mildly.

" I'm sure I don't know," answered she.

We had an awful night. It was worse than any
night at sea. Mrs. P. was propped up in one cor-
ner of a settee and I in the other, and when I was

fixed comfortable there would come a great sea,
8

170 THE POTIPHAE PAPERS.

and the boat woald lurch, and I had to disarrange
my position. It was horrid. But Mr. Potiphar
was very good all night. He kept coming to see if
Polly wanted anything, and if she were warm
enough, and if she were well. Gauche Boosey,
who was on the floor in the saloon, said he saw Mr.
P. crawl up softly and try his state-room door.
But it was locked, ^'aud the snoring of old De
Famille, who was enjoying his required rest," said
he, ''came in'regular broadsides through the blinds."

I don't know how Mr. De Famille explained. I
only know Mrs. P. charged old Pot. to be satisfied
with anything.

" There are some people, my darling Caroline,"
she said to me, *' with whom it does not do to quar-
rel. It isn't Christian to quarrel. I can't afford to
be on bad terms with the De Families."

'' It is odd, isn't it," said Kurz Pacha to Mrs. P.,
as we were sailing down the harbor on our way to
Europe, and talking of the circumstance of the
state-rooms, '' it is so odd, that in Sennaar, where,
to be sure, civilization has scarcely a foothold— I
mean such civilization as you enjoy — ^this proceed-
ing would have been called dishonest? They do
have the oddest use of terms in Sennaar ! Why, I
remember that I once bought a sheep, and as it was
coming to my fold in charge of my shepherd, a man

THE POTIPHARS IN PARIS. 171

in a mask came out of a wood and walked away
with the sheep, and appropriated the mutton-chops
to his own family uses. And those singular people
in Sennaar called it stealing! Shall I ever get
through laughing at them when I return ! There
ought to be missionaries sent to Sennaar. Do you
think the Rev. Cream Cheese would go? How
gracefully he would say : * Benighted brethren, in
my country, when a man buys a sheep or a state
room, and pays money for it, and another man ap-
propriates it, depriving the rightful buyer of his
chops and sheep, what does the buyer do ? Does
he swear? Does he rail? . Does he complain?
Does he even ask for the cold pickings? Not at
all, brethren; he does none of these things. He
sends Worcestershire sg.uce to the thief, or a pillow
of poppies, and says to him, ' Friend, all of mine is
thine, and all of , thine is thy own.' This, benighted
people of Sennaar, is the practice of a Christian
people. As one of our great poets says, ' It is more
blessed to give than to receive.' Think how deli-
cately the Rev. Cream would pat his mouth with
the fine ciambric handkerchief, after rounding off such
a homily ! He might ask you and Mrs. Potiphar to
accompany him as examples of this Christian pitch
of self-sacrifice. On the whole, I wouldn't advise
you to go. The rude races of Sennaar might put

172 THE POTIPHAE PAYEES.

that beautiful forgiveness of yours to extraordinary
proofs. Holloa ! there's a sea !"

We were dismally sea-sick. And I cared for
nothing but arriving. Oh ! dear, I think I would
even have given up Paris, at least I thought so. But,
oh! how caidd I think so? Just fancy a place
where not only your own maid speaks French, but
where everybody, the porters, the coachmen, the
chambermaids, can't speak anything else ! Where
the very beggars beg, and the commonest people
swear, in French ! Oh ! it's inexpressibly delight-
ful. Why, the dogs understand it, and the horses
— *' everybody," as Kurz Pacha said to me, the
morning after our arrival (for he insisted upon com-
ing, "it was such a freak," he said), "everybody
rolls in a luxury of French, and, according to the
boarding-school standard, is happy."

Everybody — ^but poor Mr. Potiphar !

He has a terrible time of it.

When we arrived, we alighted at Meurice's —
all the fashionable people do; at least. Gauche
Boosey said Lord Brougham did, for he used to read
it in Gralignani, and I suppose it is fashionable to do
as Lord Brougham does. D'Orsay Firkin said that
the Hotel Bristol was more recherche.

" Does that mean cheaper ?" inquired Mr. Poti-
phar.

THE POTIPHARS IN PARIS. l73

Mr. Firkin looked at him compassionately.

"I only want," said Mr. Potiphar, in a kind of
gasping way — for it was in the cars on the way
from Boulogne to Paris that we held this consulta-
tion — " I only want to go where there is somebody
who can speak English."

" My dear sir, there are commissionaires at all the
hotels who are perfect linguists," said Mr. Firkin
in a gentlemanly manner.

" Oh ! dear me !" said Mr. P. wiping his forehead
with the red bandanna that he always carries, des-
pite Mrs. P., " what is a commissionaire ?"

" An interpreter, a cicerone," said Mr. Firkin.

" A guide, philosopher, and friend," said Kurz
Pacha.

" Kurz Pacha, do you speak French ?" inquired
Mr. P., nervously, as we rolled along.

" Oh ! yes," replied he.

" Oh ! dear me !" said Mr. Potiphar, looking dis-
consolately out of the window.

We arrived soon after.

" We are now at the JBarneVe," said Mr. Firkin.

" What do we do there ?" asked Mr. Potiphar.

" We are inspected," said Mr. Firkin.

Mr. Potiphar drew himself up with a military air.

We alighted and walked into the room where all
the baggage was arranged.

174 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

*' Est'Ce quHl y a quelque chose a declarer f^^ asked
an officer, addressing Mr. Potipbar.

*<Good Heavens! what did you say?" said Mr
P., looking at him.

The officer smiled, and Eurz Pacha said some-
thing, upon which he bowed and passed on. We
stepped outside upon the pavement, and I confess
that even I could not understand everything that
was said by the crowd and the coachmen. But
Kurz Pacha led the way to a carriage, and we drove
off to Meurice's.

"It's awful, isn't it?" said Mr. Potipbar, pant-
ing.

When we reached the hotel, a gentleman (Mr.
Potipbar said be was sure he was a gentleman, from
a remark be made — in English) came bowing out.
But before the door of the carriage was opened, Mr.
P. thrust his head out of the window, and holding
the door shut, cried out, " Do you speak English
here?"

" Certainly, sir," replied the clerk ; and that was
the remark that so pleased Mr. Potipbar.

My room was next to the Potiphars, and I heard
a great. deal, you may be sure. I didn't mean to,
but I couldn't help it. The next morning, when
they were about coming down, I heard Polly say —

" Now, Mr. Potipbar, remember, if you want to

THE POTIPHABS IN PAEI8. 175

speak of your room, it is numero qvMre-vingt dnq^^
and she pronounced it very slowly. ** Now try, Mr
R"

" Oh ! dear me. Kattery vang sank," said he.

" Very good," answered she ; ^^au troisieme; that
means, on the third floor. Now try."

"0 tror — trorsy — trorsy — Oh! dear me!"
muttered he in a tone of despair.

" iema," said Mrs. P.

" eeaim," said he.

"Well?" said Mrs. P.

" O trorsyaim," said he.

" That's very well, indeed !" said Mrs. Potiphar,
and they went out of the room. I joined them in
the hall, and we ran on before Mr. P., but we soon
heard some one speaking, and stopped.

" Monsieur, veut il prendre un commissionaire ?"

" Kattery — ^vang — sank," replied Mr. Potiphar
with great emphasis.

" Comment ?" said the other.

** tror — tror — Oh ! Polly — seeaim — seeaim !*
returned Mr. P.

" You speak English ?" said the commissionaire.

" Why ! good God ! do you ?" asked Mr. P., with

astonishment.

»

" I speaks every languages, sare," replied the
other, " and we will use the English, if you please

176 THE POTIPHAE PAPERS.

But Monsieur speaks tres Men the French lan-
guage."

<* Are you speaking English now !" asked Mr.
Potiphar,

The commissionaire answered him that he was —
and Mr. P. thrust his arm through that of the com-
missionaire and said —

''My dear sir, if you are disengaged I should be
very glad if you would accompany me in my walks
through the town."

" Mr. Potiphar !" said Polly, « come !"

" Coming, my dear," answered he, as he approach-
ed with the commissionaire. It was in vain that
Mrs. P. winked and frowned. Her husband would
not take hints. So taking his other arm, and wishing
the commissionaire good morning, she tried to draw
him away. But he clung to his companion and said,

** Polly, this gentleman speaks English."

" Don't keep his arm," whispered she ; " he is only
a servant."

" Servant, indeed !" said he ; " you should have
heard him speak French, and you see how gentle-
manly he is."

It was some time before Polly was able to make
her husband comprehend the case.

" Ah !" said he, at length ; " Oh! I understand."

All our first days were full of such little mistakes.

THE POTIPHARS IN PARIS. . 177

Kurz Pacha came regularly to see us, and laughed
more than I ever saw him laugh before. The young
men were away a great deal, which was hardly
kind. But they said they must call upon their old
acquaintances ; and Polly and I expected every day
to be called upon by their lady friends.

** It's very odd that the friends of these young
men don't call upon us," said Mrs. Potiphar to Kurz
Pacha ; " It would be only civil."

The ambassador laughed a good deal to himself
and then answered,

" But they are not visiting ladies."

" What do you mean ?" said she.

" Ask Mr. Firkin," replied he.

So when we saw them next, Mrs. P. said,

" Mr. Firkin, I remember you used to tell me of
the pleasant circles in which you visited in Paris, and
how much superior French society is to American."

" Infinitely superior," replied Mr. Firkin.

" Much more sprituel,'*^ said Mr. Boosey.

" Well," said Mrs. Potiphar, ** we are going to
stay only a short time to be sure, but we should like
very much to see a little good society."

» Ah !" said Mr. Firkin.

" Oh ! yes, certainly," said Mr. Boosey ; and the
corners of his eyelids twitched.

" Perhaps you might suggest that you have some

8*

178 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

fiieDcIs stayiDg in town," said Mrs. P. <^ You know
we're all intimate enough for that."

" Yes^-oh, yes," said Mr. Firkin, slowly ; " but
the truth is, it's a little awkward. These ladies
are kind enough to receive us ; but to ask favors of
them, is, you see, different."

" Oh ! yes," interrupted Mr. Boosey ; " to ask fa-
vors of them is a very different thing," and his eyes
really glistened.

" These are ladies, you see, dear Mrs. Potiphar,"
said Kurz Pacha, " who don't grant favors."

" But still," continued Mr. Firkin, " if you only
wanted to see them, you know, and be able to say
at home that you knew Madame la Marquise So-and-
so, and Madame la Comtesse So-and-so, and describe
their dresses, why, we can manage it well enough ;
for we are engaged to a little party at the opera thit?
evening with the Countess de Papillon and Madame
Casta Diva, two of the best known ladies in Paris.
But they never visit."

" How superbly exclusive !" said Mrs. Potiphar;
" I wonder how that would do at home ! However,
I should be glad to see the general air and the toil-
ette, you know. If we were going to pass the
whole winter I would know them of course. But
things are different tvhere you stay so short a time.
Eh, Kurz Pacha?"

THK P0TIPHAR8 IN PABIS. 179

**yery different, Madame. But you are quite
ri^ht. Make hay while the sun shines ; use your
eyes if you can't use your tongue. Eyes are great
auxiliaries, you can use the tongue afterward.
You've no idea how well you can talk about
French society if you only go to the opera with a
friend who knows people, and to your banker's
soirees. If you chose to read a little of Balzac, be-
side, your knowledge will be complete."

So we agreed to go to the opera. We passed the
days shopping, and driving in the Bois de Boulogne.
Sometimes the young men went with us, and D'Or-
say Firkin confided to me one of his adventures,
which was very romantic. You know how hand-
some he is, and how excessively gentlemanly, and
how the girls were all in love with him last winter
at home. Now you needn't say that I was, for you
know better. I liked him as a friend. But he told
me that he had often seen a girl in one of the shops
on the Boulevards watching him very closely. He
never passed by, but she always saw him, and look-
ed so earnestly at him, that at length he thought he
would saunter carelessly into the shop, and ask for
some trifle. The moment he entered she fixed her
eyes full upon him, and he says they were large and
lustrous, and a little mournful in expression. But
he scarcely looked at her, and asked at the opposite

180 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

counter for a pair of gloves. He tried them on,
and in the mirror behind the counter he saw the
girl still watching him. After lingering for some
time, and looking at everything but the girl, he
sauntered slowly out again, while her eyes, he said,
grew evidently more mournful as she saw him leave
without looking at her. Daily, for a week after-
wards, he walked by the door, and she was always
watching and looking after him with the most eager
interest. Mr. Firkin did not say he was sorry for
the little French girl, but I know that he really felt
80. These men, that every woman falls in love
with, are generous, I have always found. And I am
sure he would never have confided this little affair
to me, except for the very intimate terms upon
which we are ; for I have heard him say (speaking
of other men) that nothing was meaner than for a
man to tell of his conquests.

Well, the affair went on, he says, for some days
longer. He was, at the time, constantly in attend-
ance upon the Countess de Papillon, but often
from the window of her carriage he has remarked
the young girl pensively watching him, as she
stretched gloves, or tied cravats around the necks
of customers. At length he determined to follow
the matter up, as he called it, and so marched into
the shop one day, and going straight toward the

THE POTIPHARS IN PAKXB 181

mournful eyes, he asked for a pair of gloves. Mr.
Firkin says the French women are so perfectly
trained to conceal their emotions, that she did not
betray, by any trembliag, or turning pale, or stam
mering, the profound interest she felt for him, but
quietly looked in his eyes, and in what Mr. Firkin
called " a strain of Syren sweetness," asked what
number he wore. He replied with his French
esprit, as Kurz Pacha calls it, that he thought the
size of her hand was about right for him ; upon
which she smiled in the most bewitching manner,
and bringing out a large box of gloves, selected a
pair of an exquisite nuance, as the French say, you
know, and asking him to put out his hand, she pro-
ceeded to fit the glove to it, herselft Mr. Firkin
remarked, that as she did so, she would raise her
eyes to his whenever she found it necessary to press
his fingers harder than usual, and when he thought
the glove was fairly on, she kept pulling it down,
and smoothing it ; and finally taking his hand be-
tween both of hers, she brought the glove together,
buttoned it, and said, ' Monsieur has such a delicate
hand,' and smiled sweetly.

Mr. Firkin said he bought an astonishing number
of gloves that morniijg, -and suddenly remembered
that he wanted cravats. Fortunately the new
styles had just come in, Marie said (for he had dis-

1S2 THE POTIPHAE PAPEEfi.

covered her name), and she opened a dazzling array
of silks and satins, and, asking him to remove liis
neckcloth, she wpund her hand in a beautiful silk,
and throwing her arms for a little moment quite
around his neck, she tied it in front; her little
hands sometimes hitting his chin. Then, taking him
by the hand, she led him to a mirror, in which he
might survey the effect, while she stood behind him
looking into the mirror over his shoulder, her head
really quite close to his, and, in her enthusiasm
about the set of the cravat, having forgotten to take
her hand out of his. He stood a great while before
that mirror, trying to discover if it really was a be-
coming tie. He said he never found so much diffi-
culty in deciding. But Marie decided everything
for him, and laid aside piles of cravats, and gloves,
and fancy buttons, and charms, until he was quite
dizzy, and found that he hadn't money efiough in
his pocket to pay.

" It is nothing," said the trustful Marie, "Mon-
sieur will call again." Touched by her confidence
he has called several times since, and never escapes
without paying fifty francs or so. Marie says the
Messieurs Americains are princes. They never have
smaller change than a Napoleon, and they are not
only the most regal of customers but the most po-
lite of gentlemen. Mr. Firkin says he has often

THE POTIPHARS IN PAEIS. 183

seen Frenchmen watching him, as he stood in the
shop, with the most quizzical expression, and once
or twice he has thought he heard suppressed laugh-
ter from a group of the other girls and the French
gentlemen. But it was a mistake; for when he
turned, the Frenchmen had the politest expression,
and the girls were very busy with the goods. Poor
French gentlemen ! how they must be annoyed to
see foreigners carrying off not only all the gloves,
but all the smiles, of the beautiful Maries. It is
really pleasant to see Grauche Boosey and D'Orsay
Firkin promenade on the Boulevards. They are
more superbly dressed than anybody else. They
have such coats, and trowsers, and waistcoats, and
boots — " always looking," says Kurz Pacha, " as if
they came into a large fortune last evening, and
were anxious to advertise the fact this morning."
Even the boys in the streets turn to look at them.

Mr. Boosey always buys the pattern shirts, and
woollen morning dresses, and fancy coats, that hang
in the shop windows. ** Then," he says, **I am
sure of being in the height of the fashion." Mr.
Firkin is more quiet. The true gentleman, he says,
is known by the absence of everything prononce.
** He is a very true gentleman, then," even Kurz
Pacha says, "for I have never found anything
prononce in Mr D'Orsay Firkin." The Pacha tells

184 rUK POTIPUAB PAPERS.

a good story of them. " The week after their arri
val Mr. B. appeared in a suit of great splendor. It
was a very remarkable coat and waistcoat covered
with gilt sprigs, and an embroidered shirt-bosom,
altogether a fine coronation suit for the king of the
Cannibal islands. Mr. Firkin, as usual, was rigor-
ously gentlemanly in the quiet way. They walked
together up the Boulevards, Mr. B. flashing in the
sun, and Mr. F. sombre as a shadow. The whole
world turned to remark the extreme gorgeousness
of Mr. Boosey's attire, which was peculiar even in
Paris. At first that ornament of society rather en-
joyed it, but such universal attention became a
little wearisome, and at length annoying. Finally
Mr. Boosey could endure it no longer, and, turning
round, he stopped Mr. Firkin, and, looking at him
from top to toe, remarked, ' Really I see nothing so
peculiar in your dress that the whole town should
stop to stare at you.' Mr. Boosey is a man of great
discrimination," concluded the ambassador

He went with us to the opera, where we were to
see the Countess de Fapillon and Madame Casta Diva.
The house was full, and the young gentlemen had
told us where to look for their box. Mrs. Poti-
phar had made Mr. P. as presentable as possible, and
begged the Sennaar minister to see that Mr. P. did
not talk too loud, nor go to sleep, nor offend the

THE POTIPHABS IN PARIS. 185

proprieties in any way ; especially to cut off all his
attempts at speaking French, She had hired the
most expensive box.

" People respect money, my dear," said Mrs, Po-
tiphar to me. *

"But not always its owners, my dear," whis-
pered Kurz Pacha in my other ear.

When we entered the box, all the glasses in the
house were levelled at us. Mrs. Potiphar gayly
seated herself in the best seat, nodding and chatting
with the ambassador ; her diamonds glittering, her
brocade glistening, her fan waving, while I slipped
into the seat opposite, and Mr. Potiphar stood
behind me in a dazzling expanse of white waist-
coat, and his glass in his eye, as Mrs. P. had taught
him.

"A very successful entree," whispered the Pacha
to Mrs. P. " I shall give out to my friends that it
is the heiress presumptive of the Camanchees."

"No, really; what is the Camanchees?" said
Polly levelling her glass all round the house, and
laughing, and talking, and rustling, as if she were
very, very happy.

Suddenly there was a fresh volley of glasses
towards our box, and, to our perfect dismay, we
turned and saw that Mr. Potiphar had advanced to
the front, and having put down his eye-glass, had

186 THE POTIPHAE PAPEBS.

taken out his old, round, silver-barred spectacles,
and was deliberately wiping them with that great
sheet of a hideous red bandanna, *^ preparatory to
an exhaustive survey of the house," whispered Kurz
Pffcha to me.

Mrs. P. wouldn't betray any emotion, but still
smiling, she hissed to him, under her breath :

" Mr. P., get back this minute. Don't make a fool
of yourself. Mais, monsieur^ c*est vraiment char-

The latter sentence was addressed with smiles to
the ambassador, as she saw that the neighbor in
the next box was listening.

"It's uncommonly warm," said Mr. Potiphar in
a loud tone, as he wiped his forehead with the
bandanna.

•'Yes, I observe that Mrs. Potiphar betrays the
heat in her face," said the Pacha, "which, how-
ever, is merely a becoming carnation, Madame,"
concluded he, sinking his voice, and rubbing his
hands.

At that moment, in the box opposite, I saw our
friends, Mr. Boosey and Mr. Firkin. By their sides
sat two such handsome women ! They wore a great
quantity of jewelry, and had the easiest, most smil-
ing faces, you ever saw. They entered making a
great noise, and I could see that the modesty of

THE POTIPHAES IN PABfS. 187

our friends kept them in the rear- For they seemed
almost afraid of being seen.

" I like that," said Kurz Pacha; " it shows that
such stern republicans don't intend ever to appear
delighted with the smiles of nobility."

" The largest one is Madame U Marquise Casta
Diva," said Mrs. Potiphar, scanning them carefully,
" I know her by her patrician air. What a splen-
did thing blood is, to be sure !"

She gave herself several minutes to study the toil-
ette of the lady, while I looked at the younger
lady, Counteiss de Papillon, who had all kinds of
little fluttering ends of ribbons, and laces, and scal-
lops, and ruffles, and was altogether so stylish !

"I see now where Mr. Firkin gets his elegant
manners," said Mrs. Potiphar ; ** it is a great privi-
lege for young Americans to be admitted familiarly
into such society. I now understand better the
tone of their conversation when they refer to the
French salons.^^

««Yes, my dear Madame," answered the Pacha,
'* this is, indeed, making the best of one's oppor-
tunities. This is well worth coming to Europe for.
It is, in fact, for this that Europe is chiefly valuable
to an American, as the experience of an observer
shows. Paris is, notoriously, the great centre of
historical and romantic interest. To be sure, Italy,

188 THE POTIPHAR PAPERS.

Rome, Switzerland, and Germany — ^yes, and even
England — have some few objects of interest and
attention. But the really great things of Europe,
the superior interests, are all in Paris. Why, just
reflect. Here is the Cc^ de Paris, the Trois Freres,
and the Maison Doree. I don't think you can get
such dinners elsewhere. Then, there is the Grand
Opera, the Comic Opera, and, now and then, the
Italian — ^I rather think that is good music. Are
there any such theatres as the VaudeviUe, the Va
rietesy and the Montansiery where there is the most
dexterous balancing on the edge of decency that
ever you saw ; and when the balance is lost, as it
always is, at least a dozen times every evening, the
applause is tremendous, showing that the audience
have such a subtle sense of propriety that they can
detect the slightest deviation from the right line.
Is there not the Louvre^ where, if there is not the
best picture of a single great artist, there are good
specimens of all ? Will you please to show me such
a promenade as the Boulevards, such fetes as those
of the Champs Ely sees ^ such shops as those of the
Passages^ and the Palais Royal. Above all, will
you indicate to such students of mankind as Mr.
Boosey, Mr. Firkin, and I, a city more abounding
in piquant litle women, with eyes, and coiffures and
toilettes, and je ne sais quoi^ enough to make Dio

THE POTIPHARS IN PARIS. 189

genes a dandy, to obtain their favor ? I think, dear
Madame, you would be troubled to do it. And
while these things are Paris, while we are sure of
an illimitable allowance of all this in the gay
capital, we do right to remain here. Let who will,
sadden in mouldy old Rome, or luxuriate in the
orange-groves of Sorrento and the south, or wander
among the ruins of the most marvellous of empires,
and the monuments of art of the highest human
genius, or float about the canals of Venice, or woo
the Venus and the Apollo; and learn from the
silent lips of those teachers a lore sweeter than the
French novelists impart; let who will, climb the
tremendous Alps, and feel the sublimity of Switzer-
land as he rises from the summer of Italian lakes
and vineyards into the winter of the glaciers, or
makes the tour of all climates in a day by descend-
ing those mountains towards the south ; let those
who care for it, explore in Q-ermany the sources of
modern history, and the remote beginnings of the
American spirit; Qurs be the Boulevards, the de-
moiselles, the operas, and the unequalled dinners.
Decency requires that we should see Bome, and
climb an Alp. We will devote a summer week to
the one, and a winter month to the othfr. They
will restore us, renewed and refreshed, for the manly,
generous, noble, and useful life we lead in Paris."

190 THE POTIFHAB PAPERS.

" Admirably said,"' returned Mrs. Potiphar, who
had been studying the ladies opposite while the
Pacha was speaking, " but a little bit prosy," she
whispered to me.

It would charm you to hear how intelligently
Mrs. P. speaks about French society, since that
evening at the opera. When we return, you will
find how accomplished she is. We've been here
only a few weeks, and we already know all the
fashionable shops, and a little more French, and we
go to the confectioner's, and eat savarins every morn-
ing at twelve, and we drive in the Bois de Bbtdogne
in the afternoon, and we dine splendidly, and in the
evening we go to the opera or a theatre. To be
sure we don't have much society beside our own
party. But then the shop-girls point out the dis-
tinguished women to Mrs. Potiphar, so that she can
point them out when we drive ; and our banker
calls and keeps us up in gossip ; and Mrs. Poti-
phar's maid, Adele, is inestimable in furnishihg in-
formation ; and Mr. Potiphar gets a great deal out
of his commissionaire, and goes about studjring his
Galignani's Guide, and frequents the English Bead-
ing Boom, where, I am told, he makes himself a lit-
tle conspteuous when he finds that Englishmen
won't talk, by saying, " Oh ! dear me !" and wiping
his face with a bandanna. He usually opens his ad-

THE POTIPHABS IN PARIS. 191

yances by making sure of an Englishman, and say-
ing, " Bon mati7t—h\xt, perhaps, sir, you don't speak
French."

" You evidently do not, sir," replied one gentle-
man.

" No, sir ; you're right there," answered Mr. P.
But he couldn't get another word from his com-
panion.

In this delightful round, the weeks glide by.

"You must be enjoying yourself immensely,"
says the Pacha. " You understand life, my dear
Mrs. Potiphar. Here you are, speaking very little
French, in a city where the language is an atmos-
phere, and where you are in no sense acclimated
until you can speak it fluently — ^with all French
life shut out from you — ^living in a hotel — cheated
by butcher, baker, and candlestick-maker — agoing
to hear plays that you impetfectly understand — ^to
an opera where you know nobody, and where your
box is filled with your ovni countrjrmen, who are
delightful^ indeed, but whom you didn't come to
Paris to see— constantly buying a hundred things
because they are pretty, and because you are in
Paris— i^ntirely ignorant, and quite as careless, of
the historical interests of the city, of the pictures,
of the statues, and buildings — surrounded by cele-
brities of all kinds, of whom you never heard, and

192 THE POTIPHAK PAPERS.

therefore lose the opportunity of seeing them — ^in
fact, paying the most extravagant price for every
thing, and purchasing only the consciousness of be
ing in Paris — ^why, who ought to be happy, and con
sidered to be having a fine time of it, if you are
not? How naturally you will sigh for all this
when you return and recur to Paris as the culmina-
tion of human bliss ! Here's my honored Potiphar,
who has this morning been taken to a^ darkened
room in a grand old house, in a lonely, aristocratic
street ; and there a picture-agent has shown him a
splendid Nicolas Potissin, painted in his prime for
the family, whose heir in reduced circumstances
must now part with it at a tearful sacrifice. Hon-
ored P/s friend, the commissionaire, interprets this
story, while the agent stands sadly meditating the
sacrifice with which his duty acquaints him. He
informs the good P., through the friendly commis-
sionaire, that he has been induced to offer him the
picture, not only because all Americans have so fine
a taste (as his experience has proved to him) in paint-
ings, and because they are so much more truly mu-
nificent than the nobility of other nations, but be-
cause the heir in reduced circumstances wishes to
think of the picture as entirely removed from the
possibility of being seen in France. Family pride,
which is almost crushed in disposing of so great

THE POTIPHARS IN PARIS. 193

and valued a work, would be entirely quenched, if
the sale were to be known, and the picture recog-
nized elsewhere in the country. Monsieur is a gen-
tleman, and he will understand the feelings of a
gentleman under such circumstances. The com-
missionaire and the picture-agent therefore preserve
a profound silence, and my honored friend feels for
his red bandanna, and is not comfortable in the
lonely old. house, with the picture and the people.
The agent says that it is not unusual for the
owner to visit the picture about that very hour, to
hear what chance there is for its sale. If this
knock should be he, it would not be very re-
markable. The heir enters. He. has a very heavy
moustache, dark hair, and a slightly Hebrew cast
of countenance.

** Mr. Potiphar is introduced. The heir contem-
plates the picture sadly, and he and the agent
point out its beauties to each other. In fine, my
honored Potiphar buys the work of art. To any
one else, of course, in France, for instance, the
price should be eleven thousand francs. But the
French and the Americans have fraternized; a
thousand francs shall be deducted.

" You see clearly it's quite worth while coming
to Paris to do this, because, I suppose, there are
not more than ten or twenty artists at home who

194 THE POTIPHAB PAPEBS.

could paint ten or twenty times as good a picture
for a quarter of the price. But you, dearest Mrs.
P., who know all about pictures, naturally don't
want American pictures in your house, any more
than you want anything else American there. •

"My young friends and allies, Messrs. Boosey,
Firkin, and Croesus, say that they come to Paris to
see the world. They get the words wrong, you
know. They come that the world (th^t is, ihdr
world at home) may not see them. To accompany
Mesdames de Papillon and Casta Diva to the opera,
then to return to beautifully furnished apartments
to sup, and to prolong the entertainment until
morning, is what those charming youths mean when
they say ' see the world.' To attend at that re-
union of the hatit touj Monsieur Celarius' dancing
academy, is to see good society in Paris, after the man-
ner of those dashing men of the world. It's amusing
enough, and it's innocent enough, in its way. They
won't go very far. They'll spend a good deal of
money for nothing. They'll be plucked at gaming-
houses. They'll be quietly laughed at by Mesdames
de Papillon and Casta Diva, and the male friends
of those ladies who enjoy the benefit of the lavish
bounty of our young Croesuses and Firkins. They'll
swagger a good deal, and take airs, and come home
and indulge in foreign habits, now grown indis-

THE POTIPHARS IN PARIS. 195

pensable. They will pronounce upon the female
toilette, and upon the gantier le jplus comme il faut^
in Paris. They will beg your pardon for express-
ing a little phrase in French — ^to which really, the
English is inadequate. They will have, necessarily,
the foreign air. Some of them will settle away
into business men, and be very exemplary. Others
will return to Paris, as moths to the light, asserting
that the only place for a gentleman to live agree-
ably, to indulge his tastes, and get the most for his
money, is Paris — which is strictly true of such gen-
tlemen as they. A view of life that starts from the
dinner-table, inevitably selects Paris for its career.
For, obviously, if you live to dine well you must
live where there is good cooking.

"You women are rather worse off than the
young men, Mrs. P. ; because you are necessarily so
much more confined to the house. Unless, indeed,
you imitate Mrs. Vite, who goes wherever the
gentlemen go, and who is famous as L^ Amencaine.
If you like that sort of thing, you can do as much
of it as you please. It v^ll always surround you
with a certain kind of man — and withdraw from
your society a certain kind of woman, and a certain
kind of respect.

- **'To conclude my sermon, ladies, Europe is a
charmed name to Americans, because in Europe are

196 THE POTIPHAE PAPEBS.

the fountains of all our education and training.
History is the story of that hemisphere ; the ruins
of empires, arts, and civilizations, are here. Now,
if there is any use in living at all, which I am far
from asserting, is it worth while to ^et nothing out
of Europe but a prolonged supper with Madame
Casta Diva, or a wardrobe of all the charming
dresses in Paris, and a facility of scandal which has
all the wickedness and none of the wit of the finest
Frenchwoman ? I beg a thousand pardons for
preaching, but the text was altogether too preg-
nant."

And so Kurz Pacha whirled out of the room,
humming a waltz of Strauss. He has heard of his
recall to Sennaar since he has been here — and we
shall hear nothing more of him. We, too, leave
Paris in a few days for home, and you will not hear
from us again. Mrs. Potiphar has been as busy as
possible getting up the greatest variety of dresses.
You will see that she has not been to Paris for no-
thing. Eurz Pacha asked us if we had been to the
Louvre, where the great pictures are. But when I
inquired if there were any of Mr. DusseldorPs there,
and he said no ; why, of course, as he is my favorite,
and I know more of his works than I do of any
others, I didn't go. There are some very "pretty
things there, Mr. Boosey says. But ladies have no

THE POTIPHARS IN PARIS. 197

time for such matters. Do you know, the other
evening we went to the ball at the Tuileries, and
oh ! it was splendid. There were one duke and
three marquisses, and a great many counts, pre-
sented to me. They all said, "It's charming, this
evening," and I said, "very charming, indeed."
Wasn't it nice?

But you should have seen Mrs. Potiphar when
the Emperor Napoleon HI. spoke to her. You
know what a great man he is, and what a benefac-
tor to his country, and how pure, and noble, and
upright his private character and career have been ;
and how, as Kurz Pacha said, he is radiant with
royalty, and honors everybody to whom he speaks.
Well, Mrs. P. was presented, and sank almost
to the ground in her reverence. But she actual-
ly trembled with delight when the Emperor
said

" Madame, I remember with the greatest plea-
sure the beautiful city of New York."

I am sure the Empress Eugenie would have been
jealous, could she have heard the tone in which it
was said. Waip't it affable in such a great monarch
towards a mere republican ? I wonder how people
can slander him so, and tell such stories about him.
I never saw a nicer man ; only he looks sleepy. I
suppose the cares of state oppress him, poor man !

198 . THE POTIPHAB PAPERS

But one thing you may be cure of, dear Mrs.
Downe, if people at home laugh at the Emperor
and condemn him, just find out if they have ever been
invited to the Tuileries. If not, you will understand
the reason of their hatred. Mrs. Potiphar says to
the Americans here that she can't hear the Em
peror spoken against, for they are on the best of
terms.

"Of course the French dislike him," says Mr.
Firkin, who has a turn for politics, " for they want
a republic before they are ready for it,"

How you would enjoy all this, dear, and how
sorry I am you are not here. I think Mr. Potiphar
is rather disconsolate. He whistles and looks out
of the window down into the garden of the Tuile-
ries, where the children play under the trees; and as
he looks he stops whistling, and gazes, sometimes,
for half an hour ; and whenever he goes out after-
ward, he is sure to buy something for Freddy.
When the shopkeeper asks where it shall be sent,
Mr. P. says, in a loud, slow voice — "Hotel Mureece,
Kattery vang-sank-trorsyaim.' '

It is astonishing, as Kurz Pacha sai^, that we are
not more respected abroad. " Foreigners will never
know what you really are," said he to Mr. P., "un-
til they come to you. Your going to them has
failed."

THE POTIPHARS IN PARIS. 199

Good bye, dearest Mrs. Downe. We are so
sorry to come home! You won't hear from us
again.

Tour ever affectionate

Caroline.

VI.

KURZ PACHA TO THE EING OP SENNAAR

UPON RECEIVINO HIS LETTERS OP RECALL.

(now riRST TRAHILATID.)

KURZ PACHA TO THE KING OF SENNAAR,

UPON RECEIVING- HIS LETTERS OF RECALL.

(now first translated.)

Most sable and serene Master :

I hear and obey. You said to me, Go, and I
went. You now say, come, and I am coming, with
the readiness that befits a slave, and the cheerfulness
that marks the philosopher.

Accustomed from my youth to breathe the scent-
ed air of Sennaar saloons, and to lounge in listless
idleness with young Sennaar, I am weary of the
simple purity of manners that distinguishes this
people, and long for the pleasing, if pointless, frivoli-
ties of your court*

Coming, as you commanded, to observe and re-
port the social state of the metropolis of a people
who, in the presence of the world,, have renounced
the feudal organization of society, I have found
them, as you anticipated, totally free from the
petty ambitions, the bitter resolves, and the hollow
pretences, that characterize the society of older
states.

204 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

The people of the first fashion unite the greatest
simplicity of character with the utmost variety of
intelligence, and the most graceful elegance of
manner. Knowing that for an American the only
nobility is that of feeling ; the only grace, generosi-
ty ; and the only elegance, simplicity ; they have
achieved a society which is a blithe Arcadia, illus-
trating to the world the principles they profess,
and making the friend of man rejoice.

We, who are reputed savages, might well be
astonished and fascinated with the results of civili-
zation, as they are here displayed. The universal
courtesy and consideration — the gentle charity,
which does not consider the appearance but the
substance — the . republican independence, which
teaches foreign lords and ladies the worthlessness
of mere rank, by obviously respecting the character
and not the title — the eagerness with which for-
eign habits are subdued, by the positive nature of
American manners — ^the readiness to assist — the
total want of coarse social emulation — ^the absence
of ignorance, prejudice and vulgarity, in the selecter
circles — the broad, sweet, catholic welcome .to all
that is essentially national and characteristic, which
sends the young American abroad only that he may
return eschewing European habits, and with a con-
fidence in man and his country, chastened by ex-

KUBZ PACHA TO THE KING OF SENNAAR. 205

perience — ^these have most interested and charmed
me in the observation of this pleasing people.

It is here the pride of every man to bear his part
in the universal labor. . The young men, instead of
sighing for other institutions, and the immunities of
rank, prefer to deserve, by earning, their own pa-
tents of Nobility. They are industrious, temperate,
and frugal, as becomes the youth to whom the des-
tinies of so great a nation, lind the hopes of the
world, are committed. They are proud to have
raised themselves from poverty, and they are never
ashamed to confess that they are poor They
acknowledge the equal dignity of all kinds of labo^
and do not presume upon any social differences
between their baker and themselves. Knowing
that luxury enervates a nation, they aim to show in
their lives, as in their persons, that simplicity is the
finest ornament of dress, as health best decorates the
body. They are cheerfully obedient to those who
command theiS, and gentle to those they command.
Full of charity, and knowing that if every man has
some sore weakness, he has also a human soul latent
in him, they trust each man as if that soul might,
at any moment, look out of his eyes, and acknow-
ledge with tears, the sympathy that unites them.

They show in all this social independence and
originality, the shrewd common-sense which we

206 THE POTIPHAS PAPERS.

have so often heard ascribed to them. For if, by
some fatal error, they should undertake a social
rivalry, in kind, with the old world and all its
splendid accessories of antiquity, wealth and here-
ditary refinement, the observer would see, what
now is never, beheld, foolish parvenus frenzied in
the pursuit of an elegance which, in its nature, is
inaccessible to them. We should see lavish and
unmeaning displays.* We should see a gaudy
ostentation — ^serving only as a magnificent frame
to the vanity of the subject. We should see the
grave and thoughtful, the witty and accomplished,
the men and women whose genius fitted them for
society, withdrawing from its saloons, and prefer-
ring privacy to a vulgar and profuse publicity. We
should see society become a dancing-school, and
men and women degenerated into dull and dandified
boys and girls, content with (pardon me, sable sir,
but it would be the truth) " style." We should
see, as in an efiete civilization, m^iages of con-
venience. We should hear the heirs, or the hold-
ers, of great fortunes, called " gentlemanly" if
they were dull, and " a little wild" if they were
debauched. We should see parents panting to
" marry off" their dear daughters to the richest
youths, and the richest youths affecting a ** jolly"
and " stunning" life — ^reputed to know the world

KUE2 PACHA TO THE KING OF SENNAAB. 207

because they were licentious, and to have seen life
because they had tasted foreign dissipation. We
should hear insipidity praised as good-humor, and
nonchalance as ease. We should have boorishness
accounted manliness, and impudence wit. We
should gradually lose faith in man as we associated
with men, and soon perceive that the only safety for
the city was in its constant recruiting from the
simplicity and strength of the country.

The sharp common sense of this people prevents
so melancholy a spectacle. In fact, you have only
to consider that this society does not remind you
of the best characteristics of any other, to judge
how unique it is.

But, for myself, as milk disagrees with my con-
stitution, and my mind tires of this pastoral sweet-
ness, I am too glad to obey your summons. In my
younger days whep I loved to press the stops of
oaten pipes, and — a plaintive swain — ^fancied every
woman what she seemed, and every man my friend
— ^I should have hailed the prospect of a life in an
Arcadia like this. How gladly I should have climb-
ed its Pisgah-peaks of hope, and have looked off in-
to the future, flowing with milk and honey. I
would grieve (if I could) that my sated appetite
refuses more — ^that I must lay down my crook and
play the shepherd no longer. Yet, I know well

208 THE POTIPHAR PAPERS.

enough, that, in the perfumed atmosphere of the
circle to which I return, I shall recur, often, with
more than regret, to the humane, polished, in-
telligent, and simple society I leave behind me —
shall wonder if Miss Minerva Tattle still prattles
kindly among the birds and flowers — ^if Mrs. Poti-
phar still leads, by her innate nobility, and not by
the accident of wealth, the swarm of gay, and
graceful, and brilliant men and women that sur-
round her.

I humbly trust, sable son of midnight, my lord
and master, that my present report and summary
will be found worthy of that implicit confidence
immemorially accorded to diplomatic communica-
tions. I could ask for it no other reception.
Your slave,

EuRz Pacha.

VII.

FROM THE

REV. HENRY DOVE TO MRS. POTIPHAR.

(PBIYATK.>

PROM THE REV. HENRY DOTE TO MRS
POTIPHAR.

(PKIVATE.)

Mir DEAR Mrs. Potiphar :

I am very anxious that you should allow me to re-
ceiye your sou Frederic as a pupil, at my parsonage,
here in the country. I have not lived in the city with
out knowing something about it, despite my cloth,
and I am concerned at the peril to which every
young man is there exposed. There is a proud
philosophy in vogue that everything that can be
injured had better be destroyed as rapidly as pos-
sible, and put out of the way at once. But I recall
a deeper and tenderer wisdom which declared, >< A
bnysed reed will he not break." The world is not
made for the prosperous alone, nor for the strong.
We may wince at the truth, but we must at length
believe it— that the poor in spirit, and the poor in
will, and the poor in success, are appointed as pen-
sioners upon our care.

212 THE POTIPHAB PAPERS.

In my house your son will miss the luxuries of
his home, but he will, perhaps, find as cordial a
sympathy in bis little interests, and as careful a
consultation of his desires and aims. He will have
pure air, a tranquil landscape, a pleasant society ;
my books, variously selected, my direction and aid
in his studies, and a neighborhood to town that
will place its resources within his reach. A city, it
seems to me, is mainly valuable as a gallery of op-
portunities. But a man should not live exclusively
in his library, nor among his pictures. Letters and
art may well decorate his life. But if they are not
subsidiary to the man, and his character, then he is
a sadder spectacle than a vain book or a poor pic-
ture. The eager whirl of a city tends either to
beget a thirst that can only be sated by strong, yet
dangerous excitement, or to deafen a man's ear, and
harden his heart, to the really noble attractions
around him.

It is well to know men. But men are not
learned at the billiard-table, nor in the bar-room,
nor by meeting them in an endless round of debauch,
nor does a man know the world because he has been
to Paris. It is a sad thing for a young man to seek
applause by surpassing his companions in that which
makes them contemptible. The best men of our
own time have little leisure, and the best of other

EEV. ME. DOVE TO MBS. POTIPHAB. 213

days have committed their better part to books,
wherein we may know and love them.

There is nothing more admirable than good
society, as there is nothing so fine as a noble man,
nor so lovely as a beautiful woman. And to the
perfect enjoyment of such society an ease and grace
are necessary, which are hardly to be acquired, but
are rather, like beauty and talent, the gift of nature.
That ease and grace will certainly run great risk of
disappearing, in the embrace of a fashion unchas-
tened by common sense : and it is observable that
the sensitive gaucherie of a countryman is* more
agreeable than the pert composure of a citizen.

I do not deny that your son must lose something,
if you accede to my request, but I assuredly believe
that he will gain more than he will lose. My pro-
fession makes me more dogmatic, probably, than is
strictly courteous. But I have observed, in my
recent visits to town, that courtesy, also, is getting
puny and unmanly, and that a counterfeit, called
compliment, is often mistaken for it. You will
smile, probably, at my old-fashioned whims, and
regret that I am behind my time. But really, it
strikes me, that the ineffectual imitation of an ex-
ploded social organization is, at least, two centuries
behind my time. The youth who, socially speak-
ing, are termed Young America, represent, in cha-

214 THE POTIPHAE PAPERS.

racter and conduct, anything but their own time
and their own country.

I will not deny that the secret of my interest in
your son is an earlier interest in yourself — a wild
dream we dreamed together, so long ago that it
seems not to be a part of my life. The companion
of those other days I do not recognize in the glitter-
ing lady I sometimes see. But in her child I trace
the likeness of the girl I knew, and it is to the me-
mory of that girl — whose lovely traits I will still
believe are not destroyed, but are somewhere latent
in the woman— that I consecrate the task I wish to
undertake. I am married, and I am happy. But
sometimes, through the sweet tranquillity of my
life, streams the pensive splendor of that long-
vanished summer, and I cannot deny the heart that
will dream of what might have been.

Madame, I can wish you nothing more sincerely
than that as your lot is with the rich in this world,
it may be with the poor in the world to come.
Your obedient servant,

Henrt Dove.

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